Those who, either from their own engagements and hurry of business, or from indolence, or from conceit and vanity, have neglected looking out of themselves, as far as my experience and observation reach, have from that time not only ceased to advance, and improve in their performances, but have gone backward. They may be compared to men who have lived upon their principal, till they are reduced to beggary, and left without resources.

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

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.

Few have been taught to any purpose who have not been their own teachers.

The excellence of every art, must consist in the complete accomplishment of its purpose

All the gestures of children are graceful; the reign of distortion and unnatural attitudes commences with the introduction of the dancing master.

He who resolves never to ransack any mind but his own, will be soon reduced, from mere barrenness, to the poorest of all imitations; he will be obliged to imitate himself, and to repeat what he has before often repeated.