Connoisseurs think the art is already done.

I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object be what it may - light, shade, and perspective will always make it beautiful.

Light - dews - breezes - bloom - and freshness; not one of which... has yet been perfected on the canvas of any painter in the world.

It will be difficult to name a class of landscape in which the sky is not the key note, the standard of scale, and the chief organ of sentiment.

It is the soul that sees; the outward eyes Present the object, but the Mind descries. We see nothing till we truly understand it.

The sound of water escaping from mill-dams, etc., willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts, and brickwork.those scenes made me a painter and I am grateful.

The sky is the source of light in Nature and it governs everything.

We see nothing till we truly understand it.

When I sit down to make a sketch from nature, the first thing I try to do is to forget that I have ever seen a picture.

An artist who is self-taught is taught by a very ignorant person indeed.

Turner has outdone himself; he seems to paint with tinted steam, so evanescent and so airy.

Because we were Russian, sadness came naturally to us. But so did reading. In my family, a book was a life raft.

I wouldn't dignify it with the name immoral.

Every time I've made a plan in my Hollywood acting career, something else has happened, so I've gotten out of the habit of trying to predict the future.

Government is essentially immoral. The State employs evil weapons to subjugate evil, and is alike contaminated by the objects with which it deals, and the means by which it works.

[Individuals] have a right to defend themselves and recover by force what by unlawful force is taken from them.

After Bruno Walter, my career went in leaps and bounds. I have had 35 years of a career that is just incredible, and a wonderful time all over the world.

Yes, my kids come first, but as a parent I need to come to them with a fresh mind. I can't be too exhausted or too tired. And I am a better parent when I have more energy.

Obviously some states are allowed to have weapons of mass destruction while others are not.

Among the popular and representative systems of government I do not approve of the federal system: it is too perfect; and it requires virtues and political talents much superior to our own.

To err is human. To loaf is Parisian.