WASHINGTON ALLSTON QUOTES
American painter & poet (1779-1843)
Never judge a work of art by its defects.
WASHINGTON ALLSTON
attributed, A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Authors of the World, both Ancient and Modern
He is but half an orator who turns his hearers into spectators.
WASHINGTON ALLSTON
Lectures on Art and Poems
Injustice allowed at home is not likely to be corrected abroad.
WASHINGTON ALLSTON
Lectures on Art and Poems
The most intangible, and therefore the worst, kind of lie is a half truth. This is the peculiar device of a conscientious detractor.
WASHINGTON ALLSTON
Lectures on Art and Poems
Humility is also a healing virtue; it will cicatrize a thousand wounds, which pride would keep forever open.
WASHINGTON ALLSTON
Lectures on Art and Poems
If an Artist love his Art for its own sake, he will delight in excellence wherever he meets it, as well in the work of another as in his own.
WASHINGTON ALLSTON
Lectures on Art and Poems
The only competition worthy of a wise man is with himself.
WASHINGTON ALLSTON
Memoirs and Essays
Reputation is but a synonym of popularity: dependent on suffrage, to be increased or diminished at the will of the voters.
WASHINGTON ALLSTON
Memoirs and Essays
The most common disguise of Envy is in praise of what is subordinate.
WASHINGTON ALLSTON
Lectures on Art and Poems
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.
WASHINGTON ALLSTON
Lectures on Art and Poems
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.
WASHINGTON ALLSTON
Lectures on Art and Poems
Distinction is the consequence, never the object of a great mind.
WASHINGTON ALLSTON
Lectures on Art and Poems
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.
WASHINGTON ALLSTON
Lectures on Art and Poems
The greatest of all fools is the proud fool--who is at the mercy of every fool he meets.
WASHINGTON ALLSTON
Lectures on Art and Poems
Make no man your idol, for the best man must have faults; and his faults will insensibly become yours, in addition to your own.
WASHINGTON ALLSTON
Lectures on Art and Poems
The love of gain never made a Painter; but it has marred many.
WASHINGTON ALLSTON
Lectures on Art and Poems
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.
WASHINGTON ALLSTON
Lectures on Art and Poems
If I prove extravagant, I shall be more so from ignorance than willfulness. I am not wholly insensible to the pleasures of the world, therefore shall not be governed entirely by necessity; but I flatter myself, at least, in being able to restrain their gratification within due bonds.
WASHINGTON ALLSTON
letter to Henry Collins Flagg, Jun. 23, 1800
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.
WASHINGTON ALLSTON
letter to Robert Rogers, Oct. 28, 1797
The Painter who seeks popularity in Art closes the door upon his own genius.
WASHINGTON ALLSTON
Lectures on Art and Poems