It Is Vain For Painters... To Endeavour

Whatever Trips You Make, You Must Still Have Nature In Your Eye.

Our Studies Will Be Forever, In A Very Great Degree, Under The Direction Of Chance; Like Travelers, We Must Take What We Can Get, And When We Can Get It - Whether It Is Or Is Not Administered To Us In The Most Commodious Manner, In The Most Proper Place, Or At The Exact Minute When We Would Wish To Have It.

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.

A Mere Copier Of Nature Can Never Produce Anything Great.

Simplicity Is An Exact Mediumbetween Too Little And Too Much.