It is impossible that anything will be well understood or well done that is taken into a reluctant understanding, and executed with a servile hand.

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.

Friends are the most important part of your life. Treasure the tears, treasure the laughter, but most importantly, treasure the memories.

The advertising industry's prime task is to ensure that uninformed consumers make irrational choices, thus undermining market theories that are based on just the opposite.

The day is coming when even the most closed-minded ridiculers will have to face the truth.

Where there is no longer love, there is no longer anything.

I moved to London with this really warped sense of expectation.

I've been on such a losing streak that if I had been around I would have taken General Custer and given points.

What's not to love about us! People got to know Misty and me in Athens. We've continued to be successful and continued to connect with the fans. I promise we're going to be tough to get rid of.

If God treats you well by teaching you a disastrous lesson, you never forget it.

The culture of a civilization is the art and literature through which it rises to consciousness of itself and defines its vision of the world.

And Modesty, who, when she goes, Is gone for ever.