"Experience teaches us that the eye may be subdued and forced into forming and disposing of objects even quite contrary to what it would naturally see them, by pre judgement of the mind or some other persuasive motive."

“On why our features sag, It is by the natural and unaffected movements of the muscles, caused by the passions of the mind, that every man's character would in some measure be written in his face, by the time he arrives at forty years of age.”

“he connoisseurs and I are at war you know; and because I hate them, they think I hate Titian—and let them!”

“Any two opposite colours of the rainbow , form a third between them, thus imparting to each other their peculiar qualities . The sight of what they were originally is quite lost, and instead, a most pleasing green is found, which colour, nature has chosen for the vestment of the earth, and with the beauty of which the eye never tires.”

“There is another Set of Gentry more noxious to the art than these, and those are your Picture-Jobbers from abroad, who are always ready to raise a great Cry in the Prints, whenever they think their Craft is in Danger; and indeed it is in their Interest to depreciate every English Work, as hurtful to their Trade, of continually importing Ship Loads of dead Christs, Holy Families, Madona's, and other dismal, dark Subjects, neither entertaining nor ornamental; on which they scrawl the terrible cramp Names of some Italian Masters, and fix on us poor Englishmen the Character of Universal Dupes.”

“A great many people seem to delight most in what they least understand.”