The so-called conscientiousness of the great majority of painters is nothing but perfection laboriously applied to the art of being boring. - Eugène Delacroix

Perhaps we shall one day find that Rembrandt is a greater painter than Raphael. I write down this blasphemy which will cause the hair of the school-men to stand on end without taking sides.

Can any man say with certainty that he was happy at a particular moment of time which he remembers as being delightful? Remembering it certainly makes him happy, because he realizes how happy he could have been, but at the actual moment when the alleged happiness was occurring, did he really feel happy? He was like a man owning a piece of ground in which, unknown to himself, a treasure lay buried.

..The movement and the rustle of the branches [in the forest, while losing his attention for chasing] delights me. The clouds float past and I lift my head to follow their flight, or think about some madrigal, when a slight sound, which has been going on for a little while, rouses me slowly from my dream.; at least I turn my head and see, to my grief, a little white scut just disappearing into the thicket...