A hanging in a good quarrel is an easy death they say, though I could never hear of any that came back to say so.

I never drew a picture of anything that was before me but always from fancy, a sure sign of the absence of artistic eyesight; and I illustrated my lack of real feeling for art by a very early speech: 'Mama,' said I, 'I have drawed a man. Shall I draw his soul now?

Most of our pocket wisdom is conceived for the use of mediocre people, to discourage them from ambitious attempts, and generally console them in their mediocrity.

A horrible sense of blackness and the treachery of fate seized hold upon the soul of the unhappy student.

It is better to be a fool than to be dead.

But of works of art little can be said.

A man finds he has been wrong at every stage of his career, only to deduce the astonishing conclusion that he is at last entirely right.