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

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.

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.

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.

I can and I will! Just watch me!

The more mindless the task, the higher probability of subconscious disruption can stimulate creativity.

When the things you love exist only inside your memory they cannot be destroyed or taken from you.

I thought the secret of life was obvious: be here now, love as if your whole life depended on it, find your life's work, and try to get hold of a giant panda.

With Bitcoin hard-coded to be limited, it’s like a collectible.

There's always one teacher you had a crush on; for me, it's my wife's aerobics instructor.

It is curious how tyrannical the habit of reading is...

In no other arena is the church at greater risk of losing its calling than in the public square

I loved Jack Ford. I got him in his later days, and he was a total tyrant and a total autocrat and an Irish drunk. But I had a great time.