Washington Allston Quotations

The Painter who seeks popularity in Art closes the door upon his own genius.

Reputation is but a synonym of popularity: dependent on suffrage, to be increased or diminished at the will of the voters.

He who has no pleasure in looking up, is not fit so much as to look down.

All effort at originality must end either in the quaint or the monstrous. For no man knows himself as an original; he can only believe it on the report of others.

Nothing is rarer than a solitary lie; for lies breed like Surinam toads; you cannot tell one but out it comes with a hundred young ones on its back.

It is my greatest misfortune to be too lazy, and by the few mortifications I have already set with on that account I predict many evils in my future life. I have always the inclination to do what I ought; but by continually procrastinating for tomorrow the business of today, I insensibly delay, until at the end of one month I find myself in the same place as when I began it.

The most intangible, and therefore the worst, kind of a lie is a half truth. This is the peculiar device of a conscientious detractor.

The greatest of all fools is the proud fool--who is at the mercy of every fool he meets.

Make no man your idol, for the best man must have faults; and his faults will insensibly become yours, in addition to your own.

I cannot believe that any man who deserved fame ever labored for it; that is, directly. For, as fame is but the contingent of excellence, it would be like an attempt to project a shadow, before its substance was obtained.