Could we teach taste or genius by rules, they would be no longer taste and genius.

A mere copier of nature can never produce any thing great, can never raise and enlarge the conceptions, or warm the heart of the spectator.

If deceiving the eye were the only business of the art, there is no doubt, indeed, but the minute painter would be more apt to succeed; but it is not the eye, …

You must have no dependence on your own genius. If you have great talents, industry will improve them; if you have but moderate abilities, industry will supply…

Mozart shows a creative power of such magnitude that one can virtually say that he tossed out of himself one great masterpiece after another. ~ Claudio Arrau

Genius, when young, is divine.

I've taken stuff from people, too. You know though, if you steal from one person, you're just a thief. But if you steal from everyone, that's research.