Could we teach taste or genius by rules, 

they would be no longer taste and genius.

The value and rank 

of every art 

is in proportion 

to the mental labour employed in it, 

or the mental pleasure in producing it.

A room hung with pictures is a room hung with thoughts.

The real character of a man is found out by his amusements.

There is no expedient to which a man will not go 

to avoid the labour of thinking.

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.

Few have been taught to any purpose 

who have not been their own teachers.