Few have been taught to any purpose who have not been their own teachers.
About Joshua Reynolds
Sir Joshua Reynolds was an English painter who specialised in portraits. Art critic John Russell called him one of the major European painters of the 18th century.
More quotes from Joshua Reynolds
If you have great talents, industry will improve them: if you have but moderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiency.
English painter (1723-1792)
Words should be employed as the means, not the end; language is the instrument, conviction is the work.
English painter (1723-1792)
A room hung with pictures is a room hung with thoughts.
English painter (1723-1792)
The greatest man is he who forms the taste of a nation; the next greatest is he who corrupts it.
English painter (1723-1792)
All the gestures of children are graceful; the reign of distortion and unnatural attitudes commences with the introduction of the dancing master.
English painter (1723-1792)
The real character of a man is found out by his amusements.
English painter (1723-1792)
Could we teach taste or genius by rules, they would be no longer taste and genius.
English painter (1723-1792)
Invention, strictly speaking, is little more than a new combination of those images which have been previously gathered and deposited in the memory; nothing can come of nothing.
English painter (1723-1792)
A mere copier of nature can never produce anything great.
English painter (1723-1792)
Few have been taught to any purpose who have not been their own teachers.
English painter (1723-1792)
It is but a poor eloquence which only shows that the orator can talk.
English painter (1723-1792)
The value and rank of every art is in proportion to the mental labor employed in it, or the mental pleasure in producing it.
English painter (1723-1792)