What matters in art is not thinking but making.

And I like those authors best whose scenes describe my own situation in life-- and the friends who are about me whose stories touch me with interest, from resembling my own homely existence.

Every decided colour does a certain violence to the eye, and forces the organ to opposition.

What a torment it is to see so much loveliness passing and repassing before us, and yet not dare to lay hold of it!

What is part of you, you cannot get rid of, even if you were to throw it away.

It is a maxim of wise government to treat people not as they should be but as they actually are.

True works of art are a manifestation of the higher laws of nature.