The Great End Of All

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.

By Leaving A Student To Himself He May... Be Led To Undertake Matters Above His Strength, But The Trial Will At Least Have This Advantage: It Will Discover To Himself His Own Deficiencies And This Discovery Alone Is A Very Considerable Acquisition.

Certainly, Nothing Can Be More Simple Than Monotony.

The Greatest Man Is He Who Forms The Taste Of A Nation; The Next Greatest Is He Who Corrupts It.

The Value And Rank Of Every Art Is In Proportion To The Mental Labor Employed In It, Or The Mental Pleasure In Producing It.