“What is now proved was once only imagined.”

“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity... and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.”

“Everything to be imagined is an image of truth.”

“The imagination is not a state: it is the human existence itself.”

“Imagination is the real and eternal world of which this vegetable universe is but a faint shadow.”

“The following Discourse [on art, by Sir Joshua Reynolds] is particularly Interesting to Blockheads as it endeavours to prove that There is No such thing as Inspiration & that any Man of a plain Understanding may by Thieving from Others become a Mich Angelo.”

“Every harlot was a virgin once”