Quotes from Benjamin Haydon

Men who have reached and passed 45, have a look as if waiting for the secret of the other world, and as if they were perfectly sure of having found out the secret of this.

There surely is in human nature an inherent propensity to extract all the good out of all the evil.

Men of genius are often considered superstitious, but the fact is, the fineness of their nerve renders them more alive to the supernatural than ordinary men.

How difficult it is to get men to believe that any other man can or does act from disinterestedness!

If men would only take the chances of doing right because it is right, instead of the immediate certainty of the advantage of doing wrong, how much happier would their lives be.

It is highly convenient to believe in the infinite mercy of God when you feel the need of mercy, but remember also his infinite justice.

The greatest geniuses have always attributed everything to God, as if conscious of being possessed of a spark of His divinity.

Do your duty, and don't swerve from it. Do that which your conscience tells you to be right, and leave the consequences to God.

Mistrusts sometimes come over one's mind of the justice of God. But let a real misery come again, and to whom do we fly? To whom do we instinctively and immediately look up?

Some persons are so devotional they have not one bit of true religion in them.

When a man is no longer anxious to do better than well, he is done for.

Art is a reality, not a definition; inasmuch as it approaches a reality, it approaches perfection, and inasmuch as it approaches a mere definition, it is imperfect and untrue.

Men who have reached and passed forty-five, have a look as if waiting for the secret of the other world, and as if they were perfectly sure of having found out the secret of this.

One of the surest evidences of an elevated taste is the power of enjoying works of impassioned terrorism, in poetry, and painting. The man who can look at impassioned subjects of terror with a feeling of exultation may be certain he has an elevated taste.

The explanation of the propensity of the English people to portrait painting is to be found in their relish for a Fact. Let a man do the grandest things, fight the greatest battles, or be distinguished by the most brilliant personal heroism, yet the English people would prefer his portrait to a painting of the great deed. The likeness they can judge of; his existence is a Fact. But the truth of the picture of his deeds they cannot judge of, for they have no imagination.

The great difficulty is first to win a reputation; the next to keep it while you live; and the next to preserve it after you die, when affection and interest are over, and nothing but sterling excellence can preserve your name. Never suffer youth to be an excuse for inadequacy, nor age and fame to be an excuse for indolence.

The longer a man lives in this world the more he must be convinced that all domestic quarrels had better never be obtruded on the public; for, let the husband be right, or let him be wrong, there is always a sympathy existing for women which is certain to give the man the worst of it.

The only legitimate artists in England are the architects.

There surely is in human nature an inherent propensity to extract all the good out of all the evil.

Genius is nothing more than common faculties refined to a greater intensity. There are no astonishing ways of doing astonishing things. All astonishing things are done by ordinary materials.

There must be more malice than love in the hearts of all wits.

When a man is no longer anxious to do better than well, he is done for.

Art is a reality, not a definition; inasmuch as it approaches a reality, it approaches perfection, and inasmuch as it approaches a mere definition, it is imperfect and untrue.

Never suffer youth to be an excuse for inadequacy, nor age and fame to be an excuse for indolence.