62 Quotes by James Whistler

Hang on the walls of your mind the memory of your successes. Take counsel of your strength, not your weakness. Think of the good jobs you have done. Think of the times when you rose above your average level of performance and carried out an idea or a dream or a desire for which you had deeply longed. Hang these pictures on the walls of your mind and look at them as you travel the roadway of life.

Had silicon been a gas, I would have been a major general

It would have been called provincial and barbarous; it would have been cited as an incident of low civilization to confuse such art.

An artist’s career always begins tomorrow.

Art is a goddess of dainty thought, reticent of habit, abjuring all obtrusiveness, purposing in no way to better others. She is, withal selfishly occupied with her own perfection only – having no desire to teach.

For art and joy go together, with bold openness, and high head, and ready hand – fearing naught and dreading no exposure.

I always ask at once, ‘Do you drink?’ and if she says ‘No,’ I bow politely and say I am sorry but I fear she will not suit. All good cooks drink.

Industry in art is a necessity – not a virtue – and any evidence of the same, in the production, is a blemish, not a quality; a proof, not of achievement, but of absolutely insufficient work, for work alone will efface the footsteps of work.

The work of a master reeks not of the sweat of the brow – suggests no effort – and is finished from its beginning.