I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object be what it may - light, shade, and perspective will always make it beautiful.

Light - dews - breezes - bloom - and freshness; not one of which... has yet been perfected on the canvas of any painter in the world.

It will be difficult to name a class of landscape in which the sky is not the key note, the standard of scale, and the chief organ of sentiment.

It is the soul that sees; the outward eyes Present the object, but the Mind descries. We see nothing till we truly understand it.

The sound of water escaping from mill-dams, etc., willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts, and brickwork.those scenes made me a painter and I am grateful.

The sky is the source of light in Nature and it governs everything.

We see nothing till we truly understand it.

When I sit down to make a sketch from nature, the first thing I try to do is to forget that I have ever seen a picture.

An artist who is self-taught is taught by a very ignorant person indeed.

Turner has outdone himself; he seems to paint with tinted steam, so evanescent and so airy.

Speaking to a lawyer about pictures is something like talking to a butcher about humanity.

You never understood games. Maybe that's why the world was such a mystery to you.

Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild.

In this watering-place I acted an heroic character, badly studied; and being a novice on such a stage, I forgot my part before a pair of lovely blue eyes.

Your success will be determined by the quality of your relationships with people.

Of course I think of the past and of Paris, what else is there to remember?

Tears aren't a girl's weapon. It's her smile.

For a long time now my heart has had its shutters closed, its steps deserted, formerly a tumultuous hotel, but now empty and echoing like a great empty tomb.

Obviously, there is pleasure in the execution of any sort of art, and using language, as Nabokov felt also, is an exquisite process.

The depth, width, ferocity, and immensity of God is seen most spectacularly in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

You must be a lotus, unfolding its petals when the sun rises in the sky, unaffected by the slush where it is born or even the water which sustains it!