The End of our Foundation is the knowledge of Causes; and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of Human Empire, to the effecting of all things possible.
Children sweeten labours. But they make misfortune more bitter. They increase the care of life. But they mitigate the remembrance of death. The perpetuity of generation is common to beasts. But memory, merit and noble works are proper to men. And surely a man shall see the noblest works and foundations have proceeded from childless men which have sought to express the images of their minds where those of their bodies have failed.
A man cannot speak to his son, but as a father; to his wife, but as a husband; to his enemy, but upon terms: whereas a friend may speak, as the case requires, and not as it sorteth with the person.
Lukewarm persons think they may accommodate points of religion by middle ways and witty reconcilements,--as if they would make an arbitrament between God and man.
I think that one of the things is that, if you are going to decide to be a painter, you have got to decide that you are not going to be afraid of making a fool of yourself. I think another thing is to be able to find subjects which really absorb you to try and do. I feel that without a subject you automatically go back into decoration because you haven't got the subject which is always eating into you to bring it back - and the greatest art always returns you to the vulnerability of the human situation.
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.
That conceit, elegantly expressed by the Emperor Charles V., in his instructions to the King, his son, "that fortune hath somewhat the nature of a woman, that if she be too much wooed she is the farther off.
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.
If you want to convey fact, this can only ever be done through a form of distortion. You must distort to transform what is called appearance into image.
In revenge a man is but even with his enemy; for it is a princely thing to pardon, and Solomon saith it is the glory of a man to pass over a transgression.