“All great art is the expression of man's delight in God's work, not his own.”

“All great art is praise.”

“I believe that the first test of a great man is his humility. I don't mean by humility, doubt of his power. But really great men have a curious feeling that the greatness is not of them, but through them. And they see something divine in every other man and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful.”

“Understand this clearly: you can teach a man to draw a straight line, and to carve it; and to copy and carve any number of given lines or forms, with admirable speed and perfect precision; and you find his work perfect of its kind: but if you ask him to think about any of those forms, to consider if he cannot find any better in his own head, he stops; his execution becomes hesitating; he thinks, and ten to one he thinks wrong; ten to one he makes a mistake in the first touch he gives to his work as a thinking being. But you have made a man of him for all that. He was only a machine before, an animated tool.”

“Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts - the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art.”

“No good work whatever can be perfect, and the demand for perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art.”

“All art is but dirtying the paper delicately.”