Sir Joshua ReynoldsThinkers

Excellence is never granted to man, hut as the reward of labor. It argues, indeed, no small strength of mind to persevere in the habits of industry, without the pleasure of perceiving those advantages which, like the hands of a clock, whilst they make hourly approaches to their point, yet proceed so slowly as to escape observation.

Genius is supposed to be a power of producing excellences which are out of the reach of the rules of art: a power which no precepts can teach, and which no industry can acquire.

The Invention is little more than a new combination of those images which have been previously gathered and deposited in the memory.

The Mind is but a barren soil; a soil which is soon exhausted, and will produce no crop, or only one, unless it be continually fertilised and enriched with foreign matter.

A Reform is a work of time; a national taste, however wrong it may be, cannot be totally changed at once.

Simplicity is an exact medium between too little and too much.