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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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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
Every
Meets
Fools
Mercy
Fool
Proud
Greatest

More quotes by Washington Allston

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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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Distinction is the consequence, never the object of a great mind.
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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.
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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
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I have no ambition to shine beyond my abilities.
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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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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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
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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.
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.
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Selfishness in art, as in other things, is sensibility kept at home.
Washington Allston
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In the same degree that we overrate ourselves, we shall underrate others.
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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Nothing gets you behind faster than trying to keep up with people who are already there.
Washington Allston
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The only competition worthy of a wise man is with himself.
Washington Allston
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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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Desert being the essential condition of praise, there can be no reality in the one without the other.
Washington Allston
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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.
Washington Allston
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Never judge a work of art by its defects.
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