Washington Allston Men Quotations

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.

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.

If the whole world should agree to speak nothing but truth, what an abridgment it would make of speech! And what an unravelling there would be of the invisible webs which men, like so many spiders, now weave about each other!

An original mind is rarely understood, until it has been reflected from some half-dozen congenial with it, so averse are men to admitting the true in an unusual form; whilst any novelty, however fantastic, however false, is greedily swallowed.

Never expect justice from a vain man; if he has the negative magnanimity not to disparage you, it is the most you can expect.

No man knows himself as an original.

The only competition worthy of a wise man is with himself.