“Every man's work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.”

—  Samuel Butler , book The Way of All Flesh

Source: The Way of All Flesh (1903), Ch. 14
Context: Every man’s work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself, and the more he tries to conceal himself the more clearly will his character appear in spite of him.

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Samuel Butler 232
novelist 1835–1902

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