Gainsborough Quotes & Sayings

We love a genius for what he leaves and mourn him for what he takes away — Thomas Gainsborough

Fools talk of imitation and copying, all is imitation — Thomas Gainsborough

Sky and clouds and trees and little figures relaxing in the perfect rural rhythm of their surroundings: these are the staples of a Gainsborough landscape. — Arthur Smith

Though I'm a rogue in talking upon Painting & Love I can be serious and honest upon any subject thoroughly pleasing to me. — Thomas Gainsborough

If you look at art history, at Goya or Gainsborough, it's always about acknowledging the people of your time who have influence. — Sam Taylor-Johnson

Many a real genius is lost in the fictitious character of the Gentleman. I am the most inconsistent, changeable being so full of fits and starts. — Thomas Gainsborough

The foreign correspondent is frequently the only means of getting an important story told, or of drawing the world's attention to disasters in the making or being covered up. Such an important role is risky in more ways than one. It can expose the correspondent to actual physical danger; but there is also the moral danger of indulging in sensationalism and dehumanizing the sufferer. This danger immediately raises the question of the character and attitude of the correspondent, because the same qualities of mind which in the past separated a Conrad from a Livingstone, or a Gainsborough from the anonymous painter of Francis Williams, are still present and active in the world today. Perhaps this difference can best be put in one phrase: the presence or absence of respect for the human person. — Chinua Achebe

The celebrated painter Gainsborough got as much pleasure from seeing violins as from hearing them. — Georg C. Lichtenberg

I wish you would recollect that Painting and Punctuality mix like Oil and Vinegar, and that Genius and regularity are utter Enemies and must be to the end of time. — Thomas Gainsborough

Cornwallis was a man who could have thrust his hand in a flame if necessary, but not a man to organize the logistics and arrangements of a large campaign with a likely risk of failure. The smooth face in the Gainsborough portrait with no lines of thought or of frowns or of laughter - with no lines at all - tells as much. It is a face composed by a life of comfort and satisfaction without any need of desperate attempts. As — Barbara W. Tuchman

But only the English would insist on two separate versions of Gainsborough's checkout line. Or even have the chutzpah to suggest it. Julius Caesar didn't say "Et tu, Brute?" and "Where's the Praetorian guard when you really need them?" John Wilkes Booth didn't shriek "Sic semper tyrannis" and "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how'd you like the play? — Joe Queenan