All art is but imitation of nature.

All art is but imitation of nature.

Nature does not bestow virtue; to be good is an art.

My art flatters nobody by imitation; it courts nobody by smoothness, tickles nobody by petiteness... there is no finish in nature.

..if I dont do something on the grand scale, it is that my genius is altogether imitative, and that I have nor recently encountered any very striking models of grandeur.

Everything is the product of one universal creative effort. There is nothing dead in Nature.