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13 quotes by Joshua Reynolds

Joshua Reynolds, self-portrait (detail) aged around 24, National Portrait Gallery, London Sir Joshua Reynolds PRA FRS FRSA (/ˈrɛnəldz/; 16 July 1723 – 23 February 1792) was an influential eighteenth-century English painter, specialising in portraits. He promoted the "Grand Style" in painting which depended on idealization of the imperfect. He was a founder and first president of the Royal Academy, and was knighted by George III in 1769.
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A room hung with pictures is a room hung with thoughts.

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There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking.

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A mere copier of nature can never produce anything great.

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Few have been taught to any purpose who have not been their own teachers.

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It is but a poor eloquence which only shows that the orator can talk.

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The greatest man is he who forms the taste of a nation; the next greatest is he who corrupts it.

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The real character of a man is found out by his amusements.

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The value and rank of every art is in proportion to the mental labor employed in it, or the mental pleasure in producing it.

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

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Invention, strictly speaking, is little more than a new combination of those images which have been previously gathered and deposited in the memory;... →

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If you have great talents, industry will improve them: if you have but moderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiency.

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All the gestures of children are graceful; the reign of distortion and unnatural attitudes commences with the introduction of the dancing master.

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Words should be employed as the means, not the end; language is the instrument, conviction is the work.

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