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

More quotes by Washington Allston

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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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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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Humility is also a healing virtue it will cicatrize a thousand wounds, which pride would keep forever open.
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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.
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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Injustice allowed at home is not likely to be corrected abroad.
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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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The only competition worthy of a wise man is with himself.
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Never judge a work of art by its defects.
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Selfishness in art, as in other things, is sensibility kept at home.
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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In the same degree that we overrate ourselves, we shall underrate others.
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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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Desert being the essential condition of praise, there can be no reality in the one without the other.
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.
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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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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.
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He who has no pleasure in looking up, is not fit so much as to look down.
Washington Allston