A sketch will not serve more than one state of mind & will not serve to drink at again & again — in a sketch there is nothing but the one state of mind — that which you were in at the time.

I never saw an ugly thing in my life.

I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object be what it may - light, shade, and perspective will always make it beautiful.

The world is wide; no two days are alike, nor even two hours; neither were there ever two leaves of a tree alike since the creation of the world; and the genuine productions of art, like those of nature, are all distinct from one another.

When I sit down to make a sketch from nature, the first thing I try to do is to forget that I have ever seen a picture.

The world is rid of Lord Byron, but the deadly slime of his touch still remains.

Painting is with me but another word for feeling.