Simplicity is an exact mediumbetween too little and too much.

Excellence is never granted to man, but as the reward of labour.

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.

A mere copier of nature can never produce anything great.

But young men have not only this frivolous ambition of being thought masters of execution, inciting them on the one hand, but also their natural sloth tempting them on the other. They are terrified at the prospect before them, of the toil required to attain exactness. The impetuosity of youth is disgusted at the slow approaches of a regular siege, and desires, from mere impatience of labour, to take the citadel by storm. They wish to find some shorter path to excellence, and hope to obtain the reward of eminence by other means, than those which the indispensable rules of art have prescribed.

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

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