In portraits, the grace and, we may add, the likeness consists more in taking the general air than in observing the exact similitude of every feature.

Taste depends upon those finer emotions which make the organization of the soul.

The value and rank of every art is in proportion to the mental labor employed in it, or the mental pleasure in producing it.

The young mind is pliable and imitates, but in more advanced states grows rigid and must be warmed and softened before it will receive a deep impression.

Style in painting is the same as in writing; a power over materials, whether words or colors, by which conceptions or sentiments are conveyed.

Every art, like our own, has in its composition fluctuating as well as fixed principles. It is an attentive inquiry into their difference that will enable us to determine how far we are influenced by custom and habit, and what is fixed in the nature of things.

The real character of a man is found out by his amusements.