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A mere copier of nature can never produce any thing great, can never raise and enlarge the conceptions, or warm the heart of the spectator.

— Joshua Reynolds

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More quotes by Joshua Reynolds

Nature is, and must be the fountain which alone is inexhaustible; and from which all excellencies must originally flow.

God does not give excellence to men but as the reward of labor.

Nothing is denied to well-directed labor; nothing is ever to be attained without it.

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

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

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Joshua Reynolds (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.