As light fades and the shadows deepen, all petty and exacting details vanish, everything trivial disappears, and I see things as they are in great strong masses: the buttons are lost, but the sitter remains; the sitter is lost, but the shadow remains; the shadow is lost, but the picture remains. And that, night cannot efface from the painter's imagination.

For art and joy go together, with bold openness, and high head, and ready hand - fearing naught and dreading no exposure.

I maintain that two and two would continue to make four, in spite of the whine of the amateur for three, or the cry of the critic for five.

The vast majority of English folk cannot and will not consider a picture as a picture, apart from any story which it may be supposed to tell.

Work alone will efface the footsteps of work.

Industry in art is a necessity - not a virtue - and any evidence of the same, in the production, is a blemish, not a quality; a proof, not of achievement, but of absolutely insufficient work, for work alone will efface the footsteps of work.

You shouldn't say it is not good. You should say, you do not like it; and then, you know, you're perfectly safe.