Washington Allston Quotations

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

Distinction is the consequence, never the object of a great mind.

Never judge a work of art by its defects.

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.

The most common disguise of Envy is in praise of what is subordinate.

Titian, Tintoretto, and Paul Veronese absolutely enchanted me, for they took away all sense of subject... It was the poetry of color which I felt, procreative in its nature, giving birth to a thousand things which the eye cannot see, and distinct from their cause.

The painter who is content with the praise of the world for what does not satisfy himself, is not an artist, but an artisan; for though his reward be only praise, his pay is that of a mechanic.

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.

Selfishness in art, as in other things, is sensibility kept at home.

Fame has no necessary conjunction with praise; it may exist without the breath of a word: it is a recognition of excellence which must be felt, but need not be spoken. Even the envious must feel it,--feel it, and hate in silence.

Desert being the essential condition of praise, there can be no reality in the one without the other.

It is a hard matter for a man to lie all over, nature having provided king's evidence in almost every member. The hand will sometimes act as a vane, to show which way the wind blows, even when every feature is set the other way; the knees smite together and sound the alarm of fear under a fierce countenance; the legs shake with anger when all above us calm.

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.

No man knows himself as an original.

Reverence is an ennobling sentiment; it is felt to be degrading only by the vulgar mind, which would escape the sense of its own littleness by elevating itself into an antagonist of what is above it. He that has no pleasure in looking up is not fit so much as to look down. Of such minds are mannerists in Art; in the world, tyrants of all sorts.

I have no ambition to shine beyond my abilities.

Injustice allowed at home is not likely to be corrected abroad.

I am inclined to think from my own experience that the difficulty to eminence lies not in the road, but in the timidity of the traveler.

In the same degree that we overrate ourselves, we shall underrate others.

The love of gain never made a painter; but it has marred many.

Humility is also a healing virtue; it will cicatrize a thousand wounds, which pride would keep forever open.

Nothing gets you behind faster than trying to keep up with people who are already there.

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.