You want accuracy, but not representation. If you know how to make the figuration, it doesn't work. Anything you can make, you make by accident. In painting, you have to know what you do, not how, when you do it.
Generally he perceived in men of devout simplicity this opinion: that the secrets of nature were the secrets of God, part of that glory into which man is not to press too boldly.
I'm working for myself; what else have I got to work for? How can you work for an audience? What do you imagine an audience would want? I have got nobody to excite except myself, so I am always surprised if anyone likes my work sometimes. I suppose I'm very lucky, of course, to be able to earn my living by something that really absorbs me to try to do, if that is what you call luck.
In every great time there is some one idea at work which is more powerful than any other, and which shapes the events of the time and determines their ultimate issues.
Then bless thy secret growth, nor catch At noise, but thrive unseen and dumb; Keep clean, be as fruit, earn life, and watch, Till the white-wing'd reapers come.
The way of fortune is like the milky way in the sky; which is a meeting, or knot, of a number of small stars, not seen asunder, but giving light together : so are there a number of little and scarce discerned virtues, or rather faculties and customs, that make men fortunate.