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13 J.M.W. Turner Quotes

J.M.W. Turner gives a plain-spoken reminder that genius comes from hard work.

J.M.W. Turner quotes

  1. I know of no genius but the genius of hard work.

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Also attributed

  1. I don't paint so that people will understand me, I paint to show what a particular scene looks like.

  2. I have no secret but hard work. This is a secret that many never learn, and they don't succeed because they don't learn it. Labor is the genius that changes the world from ugliness to beauty, and the great curse to a great blessing.

  3. I hate married men. They never make any sacrifices to the arts, but are always thinking of their duties to their wives and families or some rubbish of that sort.

  4. My job is to paint what I see, not what I know.

  5. It is necessary to mark the greater from the lesser truth: namely the larger and more liberal idea of nature from the comparatively narrow and confined; namely that which addresses itself to the imagination from that which is solely addressed to the eye.

  6. To select, combine and concentrate that which is beautiful in nature and admirable in art is as much the business of the landscape painter in his line as in the other departments of art.

  7. Light is therefore color.

  8. It is only when we are no longer fearful that we begin to create.

  9. If I could find anything blacker than black, I'd use it.

  10. indistinctness is my forte.

  11. There's a sketch at every turn.

  12. Painting is a strange business.