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

It is but a poor eloquence which only shows that the orator can talk.

Poetry operates by raising our curiosity, engaging the mind by degrees to take an interest in the event, keeping that event suspended, and surprising at last with an unexpected catastrophe.

If you have great talents, industry will improve them: if you have but moderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiency.

The mind is but a barren soil; a soil which is soon exhausted, and will produce no crop, or only one, unless it be continually fertilized and enriched with foreign matter.

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

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