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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

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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
Become
Best
Must
Make
Insensibly
Men
Idol
Addition
Idols
Faults

More quotes by Washington Allston

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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
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Humility is also a healing virtue it will cicatrize a thousand wounds, which pride would keep forever open.
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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!
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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
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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
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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
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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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Reputation is but a synonym of popularity: dependent on suffrage, to be increased or diminished at the will of the voters.
Washington Allston
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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
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In the same degree that we overrate ourselves, we shall underrate others.
Washington Allston
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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
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Distinction is the consequence, never the object of a great mind.
Washington Allston
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I have no ambition to shine beyond my abilities.
Washington Allston
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The greatest of all fools is the proud fool--who is at the mercy of every fool he meets.
Washington Allston
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The Painter who seeks popularity in Art closes the door upon his own genius.
Washington Allston
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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
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He who has no pleasure in looking up, is not fit so much as to look down.
Washington Allston
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The love of gain never made a painter but it has marred many.
Washington Allston
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Nothing gets you behind faster than trying to keep up with people who are already there.
Washington Allston
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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