Joshua Reynolds

“There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking.”

“Excellence is never granted to man but as the reward of labor.”

“A room hung with pictures is a room hung with thoughts.”

“If you have great talents, industry will improve them; if you have but moderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiency.”

“Invention, strictly speaking, is little more than a new combination of those images which have been previously gathered and deposited in the memory.”

“A mere copier of nature can never produce anything great.”

“The great end of art is to strike the imagination.”

“Nothing is denied to well-directed labor: nothing is to be obtained without it.”

“Genius is nothing but a greater aptitude for patience.”

“We are all upon a level, so that we must be valued and distinguished only by our industry and our virtues.”

“The value of every story depends on its being true.”

“The mind is but a barren soil; a soil which is soon exhausted, and will produce no crop... unless it be continually fertilized and enriched with foreign matter.”

“What has been done, may be done again.”

“A painter should be a poet.”

“The general effect of painting is produced by the combination of light and shade.”

“Practice is the best of all instructors.”

“Human nature is the same in all professions.”

“The true instrument of astonishing successes is the power of concentrating all the faculties of the mind on one point.”

“Whoever is resolved to excel in painting, or indeed in any other art, must bring all his mind to bear upon that one object from the moment that he rises till he goes to bed.”