Poetry operates by raising our curiosity, engaging the mind by degrees to take an interest in the event, keeping that event suspended, and surprising at last with an unexpected catastrophe.

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

The real character of a man is found out by his amusements.

Few have been taught to any purpose who have not been their own teachers.

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

Our Exhibitions [The Royal Academy] have... a mischievous tendency, by seducing the Painter to an ambition of pleasing indiscriminately the mixed multitude of people who resort to them.

Art in its perfection is not ostentatious; it lies hid and works its effect, itself unseen.

The great end of all arts is to make an impression on the imagination and the feeling. The imitation of nature frequently does this. Sometimes it fails and something else succeeds.

A mere copier of nature can never produce anything great.

Taste depends upon those finer emotions which make the organization of the soul.

Genius is supposed to be a power of producing excellences which are put of the reach of the rules of art: a power which no precepts can teach, and which no industry can acquire.

When you chase a dream, you learn about yourself. You learn your capabilities and limitations, and the value of hard work and persistence.

While Kalila didn't quite know what she wanted, she knew what she didn't want. She didn't want to live a charade. She didn't want a marriage of convenience where you were together but alone.

Better a crust of black bread than a mountain of paper confections, Better a daisy in earth than a dahlia cut and gathered, Better a cowslip with root than a prize carnation without it

The closest friends you'll have are the ones you'd take a bullet for, but they're the ones you constantly feel you could put a bullet in as well.

Better the hard truth, I say, than the comforting fantasy. And in the final tolling it often turns out that the facts are more comforting than the fantasy.

Life is what you make of it. Don't make excuses - make it happen.

Building confidence and constructive relations between Sudan and South Sudan is urgent

I love playing in Japan! It's always like being in the ancient past and the future at the same time. And the fans sing along to every word.

My old man claimed that the more complicated the law the more opportunity for scoundrels.

Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible to feelings as to sight?