Quote

Selfishness in art, as in other things, is sensibility kept at home.

Washington Allston

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Selfishness
Kept
Art
Home
Things
Sensibility

More quotes by Washington Allston

Image
The Painter who seeks popularity in Art closes the door upon his own genius.
Washington Allston
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
In the same degree that we overrate ourselves, we shall underrate others.
Washington Allston
Image
No man knows himself as an original.
Washington Allston
Image
Injustice allowed at home is not likely to be corrected abroad.
Washington Allston
Image
Nothing gets you behind faster than trying to keep up with people who are already there.
Washington Allston
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Never judge a work of art by its defects.
Washington Allston
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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!
Washington Allston
Image
Humility is also a healing virtue it will cicatrize a thousand wounds, which pride would keep forever open.
Washington Allston
Image
The only competition worthy of a wise man is with himself.
Washington Allston
Image
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
Image
The most common disguise of Envy is in praise of what is subordinate.
Washington Allston
Image
The greatest of all fools is the proud fool--who is at the mercy of every fool he meets.
Washington Allston
Image
Distinction is the consequence, never the object of a great mind.
Washington Allston