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
Originals
Swallowed
Form
Original
Whilst
Mind
Fantastic
Admitting
Men
False
Reflected
However
Novelty
Understood
Dozen
Greedily

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The most common disguise of Envy is in praise of what is subordinate.
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Injustice allowed at home is not likely to be corrected abroad.
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Distinction is the consequence, never the object of a great mind.
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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.
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In the same degree that we overrate ourselves, we shall underrate others.
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No man knows himself as an original.
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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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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.
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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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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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Nothing gets you behind faster than trying to keep up with people who are already there.
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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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Reputation is but a synonym of popularity: dependent on suffrage, to be increased or diminished at the will of the voters.
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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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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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He who has no pleasure in looking up, is not fit so much as to look down.
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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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The love of gain never made a painter but it has marred many.
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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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Humility is also a healing virtue it will cicatrize a thousand wounds, which pride would keep forever open.
Washington Allston