There has never been a boy painter, nor can there be. The art requires a long apprenticeship, being mechanical, as well as intellectual.

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.

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.

I do not consider myself at work unless I am before a six-foot canvas.

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.

It will be difficult to name a class of landscape in which the sky is not the key note, the standard of scale, and the chief organ of sentiment.

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