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

Art is a goddess of dainty thought, reticent of habit, abjuring all obtrusiveness, purposing in no way to better others. She is, withal selfishly occupied with her own perfection only - having no desire to teach.

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.

An artist's career always begins tomorrow

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

I can't tell you if genius is hereditary, because heaven has granted me no offspring.

As music is the poetry of sound, so is painting the poetry of sight and the subject-matter has nothing to do with harmony of sound or of color.