People will forgive anything but beauty and talent. So I am doubly unpardonable.

To say of a picture, as is often said in its praise, that it shows great and earnest labour, is to say that it is incomplete and unfit for view.

Paint should not be applied thick. It should be like a breath on the surface of a pane of glass.

An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision.

The world is divided into two classes - invalids and nurses.

Nature contains the elements, in colour and form, of all pictures, as the keyboard contains the notes of all music. But the artists is born to pick, and choose, and group with science, these elements, that the result may be beautiful - as the musician gathers his notes, and forms his chords, until he brings forth from chaos glorious harmony

It is for the artist... in portrait painting to put on canvas something more than the face the model wears for that one day; to paint the man, in short, as well as his features.