What is nobler than a man wresting and wringing his bread from the stubborn soil by the sweat of his brow and the break of his back for his wife and children!

Art teaches you the philosophy of life, and if you can't learn it from art, you can't learn it at all. It shows you that there is no perfection. There is light, and there is shadow. Everything is in half tint.

Believe that time is going to help you do what you want.

I tell you it's no joke to paint a portrait. I wonder that I am not more timid when I begin. I feel almost certain that I can do it. It seems very simple. I don't think of the time that is sure to come when I almost despair, when the whole thing seems hopeless.

The mission of art is to represent nature not to imitate her.

There's lots of fun in this world, after all. And if there isn't, there is in the next. And we're going there, sure.

Painting is the only universal language. All nature is creation's picture book. Painting alone can describe every thing which can be seen, and suggest every emotion which can be felt. Art reaches back into the babyhood of time, and is man's only lasting monument.