“Foolish critics often betray their ignorance by saying that a painter or a writer "only copies what he has seen, or puts down what he has known." They forget that no man imagines what he has not seen or known, and that it is in the selection of the characteristic details that the artistic power is manifested.”

“When a man has put a limit on what he will do, he has put a limit on what he can do.”

Charles M. Schwab (1862–1939) American capitalist and public official

“The painter should not paint what he sees, but what will be seen.”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

“The mind which is free from passions is a citadel, for man has nothing more secure to which he can fly for refuge and for the future be inexpugnable. He then who has not seen this is an ignorant man: but he who has seen it and does not fly to this refuge is unhappy.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

“Praise ignorance, for what man has not encountered he has not destroyed.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

“A writer should write what he has to say and not speak it.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

“The individual, the great artist when he comes, uses everything that has been discovered or known about his art up to that point, being able to accept or reject in a time so short it seems that the knowledge was born with him, rather than that he takes instantly what it takes the ordinary man a lifetime to know, and then the great artist goes beyond what has been done or known and makes something of his own.”

Ernest Hemingway book Death in the Afternoon

“The true writer has nothing to say. What counts is the way he says it.”

Alain Robbe-Grillet (1922–2008) 1922-2008 French agricultural engineer, filmmaker and writer

“An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.”

Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker

“Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom