Quote

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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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
Half
Unusual
Congenial
True
Rarely
Averse
Form
Originals
Swallowed
Mind
Original
Whilst
Men
Fantastic
Admitting
False
Reflected
However
Novelty
Understood
Dozen
Greedily

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The most intangible, and therefore the worst, kind of a lie is a half truth. This is the peculiar device of a conscientious detractor.
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The love of gain never made a painter but it has marred many.
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The Painter who seeks popularity in Art closes the door upon his own genius.
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Distinction is the consequence, never the object of a great mind.
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Desert being the essential condition of praise, there can be no reality in the one without the other.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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I have no ambition to shine beyond my abilities.
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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.
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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.
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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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He who has no pleasure in looking up, is not fit so much as to look down.
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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.
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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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Selfishness in art, as in other things, is sensibility kept at home.
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The greatest of all fools is the proud fool--who is at the mercy of every fool he meets.
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Nothing gets you behind faster than trying to keep up with people who are already there.
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