A Painter Must Not Only Be Of

Words Should Be Employed As The Means, Not The End; Language Is The Instrument, Conviction Is The Work.

The Mind Is But A Barren Soil; A Soil Which Is Soon Exhausted, And Will Produce No Crop, Or Only One, Unless It Be Continually Fertilized And Enriched With Foreign Matter.

Could We Teach Taste Or Genius By Rules, They Would Be No Longer Taste And Genius.

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.

But Young Men Have Not Only This Frivolous Ambition Of Being Thought Masters Of Execution, Inciting Them On The One Hand, But Also Their Natural Sloth Tempting Them On The Other. They Are Terrified At The Prospect Before Them, Of The Toil Required To Attain Exactness. The Impetuosity Of Youth Is Disgusted At The Slow Approaches Of A Regular Siege, And Desires, From Mere Impatience Of Labour, To Take The Citadel By Storm. They Wish To Find Some Shorter Path To Excellence, And Hope To Obtain The Reward Of Eminence By Other Means, Than Those Which The Indispensable Rules Of Art Have Prescribed.