We see nothing truly until we understand it.

An artist who is self-taught is taught by a very ignorant person indeed.

Painting is a science and should be pursued as an inquiry into the laws of nature. Why, then, may not a landscape be considered as a branch of natural philosophy, of which pictures are but experiments?

I associate my careless boyhood with all that lies on the banks of the Stour. Those scenes made me a painter and I am grateful – that is, I had often thought of pictures of them before ever I touched a pencil.

I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object be what it may, - light, shade, and perspective will always make it beautiful.

I know very well what I am about and that my skies have not been neglected, though they often failed in execution – and often no doubt from over anxiety about them.

I am anxious that the world should be inclined to look to painters for information about painting.

Speaking to a lawyer about pictures is something like talking to a butcher about humanity.