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.

There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking.

The real character of a man is found out by his amusements.

Few have been taught to any purpose who have not been their own teachers.

A room hung with pictures is a room hung with thoughts.

Our Exhibitions [The Royal Academy] have... a mischievous tendency, by seducing the Painter to an ambition of pleasing indiscriminately the mixed multitude of people who resort to them.

Art in its perfection is not ostentatious; it lies hid and works its effect, itself unseen.

The great end of all arts is to make an impression on the imagination and the feeling. The imitation of nature frequently does this. Sometimes it fails and something else succeeds.

A mere copier of nature can never produce anything great.

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

Genius is supposed to be a power of producing excellences which are put of the reach of the rules of art: a power which no precepts can teach, and which no industry can acquire.

Food in wartime Britain, she had to admit, was hardly inspiring.

I feel that we should not only maintain gentle, peaceful relations with our fellow human beings bur also that is very important to extend the same kind of attitude toward the natural environment.

Competitiveness is a personality thing and competitive people don't become pushovers the day they turn fifty.

He is not dead, he is just - away.

Make it all about the work. Everything else will follow.

I am often asked why I write, and I don't know really--I just want to.

Your success stops where your character stops. You can never rise above the limitations of your character.

A good civilization gives the greatest possible scope to the common passions and makes them intelligible among the great number of people.

As far as DSA is concerned, I'm perfectly happy to be associated with it while disagreeing with a large part of the leadership.

These Atlantikoinonia. They’re human? (Acheron) What else would they be? Turnips? (Tory)