Top 35 Charles Webster Hawthorne Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Anything under the sun is beautiful if you have the vision it is the seeing of the thing that makes it so.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

2. “Painting is just like making an after-dinner speech. If you want to be remembered, say one thing and stop.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

3. “Paint what you see, not what you know.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

4. “The successful painter is continually painting still life.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

5. “To see things simply is the hardest thing in the world.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

6. “Have as much fun as you can and don’t feel that the edge of your canvas confines you – let your vision go right on.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

7. “If you look into the past of the successful painter you will find square miles of canvas behind him.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

8. “Do studies, not pictures. Know when you are licked – start another. Be alive, stop when your interest is lost.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

9. “In his attempt to develop the beauty he sees, the artist develops himself.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

10. “It is so much better to make a big thing out of a little subject than to make a little thing out of a big one.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

11. “Chase used to say, ‘When you’re looking at your canvas and worrying about it, try to think of your canvas as the reality and the model as the painted thing.’”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

12. “Put variety in white.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

13. “Man-made things, buildings, boats, etc., we see more decidedly than the other things in a landscape.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

14. “Each day has its own individuality of color.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

Featured in: Individuality Quotes

15. “A sketch has charm because of its truth – not because it is unfinished.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

16. “Swing a bigger brush – you don’t know what you’re missing.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

17. “There is an aesthetic excitement about painting which is one of the most beautiful experiences that can be. Put things down while you feel that joy.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

18. “The world is waiting for men with vision – it is not interested in mere pictures.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

19. “The ring, the call, the surprise, the shock that you have out-of-doors – be always looking for the unexpected in nature, do not settle to a formula.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

20. “Be humble about it. Paint the color tones as they come against each other, and make them sing, vibrate. Don’t ask me to look at those self-satisfied, pretty things.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

21. “Study continuously, developing yourself into a better person, more sensitive to things in nature. Spend years in getting ready.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

22. “Paint with freedom. It gives you more mastery of the nature of paint.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

23. “Avoid distant views, paint objects close up. If the foreground is well done the distance will take care of itself.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

24. “Put off finish as it takes a lifetime – wait until later to try to finish things – make a lot of starts.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

25. “The value of a canvas depends almost entirely on your mental attitude, not on your moral attitude; depends on what kind of a man you are, the way you observe.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

26. “By having the big lines of the composition going out of the canvas, your imagination can wander beyond the edge. It will make it seem part of a large composition.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

27. “Do not let it look as if you reasoned too much. Painting must be impulsive to be worth while.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

28. “Realize the value of putting down your first impression quickly.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

29. “See what you can do with your daring with color and your ignorance mixed with it.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

30. “Spend a lifetime in hard work with a humble mind.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

31. “The mechanics of putting one spot of color next to another, that is the fundamental thing.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

32. “We must all teach ourselves to be fine, to be poets.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

33. “Get into the habit of doing what you see, not what you know. Human reason cannot foresee the accidents of out-of-doors.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

34. “If you are not going to get a thrill, how can you give someone else one? You must feel the beauty of the thing before you start.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne

35. “Keep this little canvas, it is a promise for the future. When I say ‘keep this canvas,’ I mean for the influence on yourself. When one does a good thing, it’s well to keep it to show how foolish we are at other times.”

— Charles Webster Hawthorne