Quotes by James Whistler

• You should not say it is not good. You should say you do not like it; and then, you know, you're perfectly safe.
• To say of a picture, as is often said in its praise, that it shows great and earnest labour, is to say that it is incomplete and unfit for view.
• The rare few, who, early in life have rid themselves of the friendship of the many.
• You shouldn't say it is not good. You should say, you do not like it; and then, you know, you're perfectly safe.
• Work alone will efface the footsteps of work.
• To say to the painter that Nature is to be taken as she is, is to say to the player that he may sit on the piano.
• An artist's career always begins tomorrow.
• The vast majority of English folk cannot and will not consider a picture as a picture, apart from any story which it may be supposed to tell.
• If other people are going to talk, conversation becomes impossible.
• I maintain that two and two would continue to make four, in spite of the whine of the amateur for three, or the cry of the critic for five.
• I am not arguing with you - I am telling you.
• I can't tell you if genius is hereditary, because heaven has granted me no offspring.
• An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision.
• It takes a long time for a man to look like his portrait.