Invention strictly speaking, is little more than a new combination of those images which have been previously gathered and deposited in the memory; nothing can come from nothing.
Could we teach taste or genius by rules, they would be no longer taste and genius.
A mere copier of nature can never produce anything great.
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
Simplicity is an exact mediumbetween too little and too much.