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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
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Washington Allston
Age: 63 †
Born: 1779
Born: November 5
Died: 1843
Died: July 9
Novelist
Painter
Poet
Writer
Charleston
South Carolina
W. Allston
Washington Alston
Allston
Believe
Project
Would
Excellence
Men
Substance
Labored
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Projects
Contingent
Shadow
Deserved
Fame
Obtained
Cannot
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Ever
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More quotes by Washington Allston
Never expect justice from a vain man if he has the negative magnanimity not to disparage you, it is the most you can expect.
Washington Allston
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
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
In the same degree that we overrate ourselves, we shall underrate others.
Washington Allston
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!
Washington Allston
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
Never judge a work of art by its defects.
Washington Allston
Reputation is but a synonym of popularity: dependent on suffrage, to be increased or diminished at the will of the voters.
Washington Allston
Desert being the essential condition of praise, there can be no reality in the one without the other.
Washington Allston
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
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.
Washington Allston
Distinction is the consequence, never the object of a great mind.
Washington Allston
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.
Washington Allston
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.
Washington Allston
The love of gain never made a painter but it has marred many.
Washington Allston
Selfishness in art, as in other things, is sensibility kept at home.
Washington Allston
The only competition worthy of a wise man is with himself.
Washington Allston
The most common disguise of Envy is in praise of what is subordinate.
Washington Allston
Injustice allowed at home is not likely to be corrected abroad.
Washington Allston
I have no ambition to shine beyond my abilities.
Washington Allston
