"The only competition worthy of a wise man is with himself."
"I cannot believe that any man who deserved fame ever labored for it; that is, directly. For, as fame is but the contingent of excellence, it would be like an attempt to project a shadow, before its substance was obtained."
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Source: Washington ALLSTON, Richard Henry DANA (Author of “Two Years before the Mast.”.) (1850). “Lectures on Art, and Poems ... Edited by Richard Henry Dana, Jr”, p.174
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"Distinction is the consequence, never the object of a great mind."
"Fame has no necessary conjunction with praise; it may exist without the breath of a word: it is a recognition of excellence which must be felt, but need not be spoken. Even the envious must feel it: feel it, and hate in silence."
"Titian, Tintoretto, and Paul Veronese absolutely enchanted me, for they took away all sense of subject... It was the poetry of color which I felt, procreative in its nature, giving birth to a thousand things which the eye cannot see, and distinct from their cause."
"If I prove extravagant, I shall be more so from ignorance than willfulness. I am not wholly insensible to the pleasures of the world, therefore shall not be governed entirely by necessity; but I flatter myself, at least, in being able to restrain their gratification within due bonds."
"Selfishness in art, as in other things, is sensibility kept at home."