There is nothing ugly; I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object be what it may, light, shade, and perspective will always make it beautiful.
John Constable
Speaking to a lawyer about pictures is something like talking to a butcher about humanity.
John Constable
It is always my endeavour however in making a picture that it should be without a companion in the world. At least such should be a painters ambition.
John Constable
When I sit down to make a sketch from nature, the first thing I try to do is to forget that I have ever seen a picture.
John Constable
Painting is a science and should be pursued as an inquiry into the laws of nature. Why, then, may not a landscape be considered as a branch of natural philosophy, of which pictures are but experiments?
John Constable