Top 40 Howard Pyle Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Paint your picture by means of the lights. Lights define texture and color – shadows define form.”

— Howard Pyle

2. “Art is the expression of those beauties and emotions that stir the human soul.”

— Howard Pyle

3. “What is done is done; and the cracked egg cannot be cured.”

— Howard Pyle

4. “An I must drink sour ale, I must, but never have I yielded to a man before, and that without would or mark upon my body. Nor, when I bethink me, will I yield now.”

— Howard Pyle

5. “Throw your heart into the picture and then jump in after it.”

— Howard Pyle

6. “All the students have shown more advance in two months of summer study than they have in a year of ordinary instruction, largely due to their free and wholesome life in the open air.”

— Howard Pyle

7. “It doth make a man better,′ quoth Robin Hood, ‘to bear of those noble men so long ago. When one doth list to such tales, his soul doth say, ‘put by thy poor little likings and seek to do likewise.’ Truly, one may not do as nobly one’s self, but in the striving one is better...”

— Howard Pyle

8. “Gaffer Swanthold speaks truth when he saith, ‘Better a crust with content than honey with a sour heart.”

— Howard Pyle

9. “He who jumps for the moon and gets it not leaps higher than he who stoops for a penny in the mud.”

— Howard Pyle

10. “So passed the seasons then, so they pass now, and so they will pass in time to come, while we come and go like leaves of the tree that fall and are soon forgotten.”

— Howard Pyle

11. “When the flood cometh it sweepeth away grain as well as chaff.”

— Howard Pyle

12. “Will you come with me, sweet Reader? I thank you. Give me your hand.”

— Howard Pyle

13. “IN MERRY ENGLAND in the time of old, when good King Henry the Second ruled the land, there lived within the green glades of Sherwood Forest, near Nottingham Town, a famous outlaw whose name was Robin Hood.”

— Howard Pyle

14. “The stories of childhood leave an indelible impression, and their author always has a niche in the temple of memory from which the image is never cast out to be thrown on the rubbish heap of things that are outgrown and outlived.”

— Howard Pyle

15. “You who so plod amid serious things that you feel it shame to give yourself up even for a few short moments to mirth and joyousness in the land of Fancy; you who think that life hath not to do with innocent laughter that can harm no one; these pages are not for you.”

— Howard Pyle

16. “I put on my dream-cap one day and stepped into Wonderland.”

— Howard Pyle

17. “Yea, he who is a true king of men, will not say to himself, ‘Lo! I am worthy to be crowned with laurels;’ but rather will he say to himself, ‘What more is there that I may do to make the world the better because of my endeavors?”

— Howard Pyle

18. “Talk about life – but in your own way.”

— Howard Pyle

19. “For every man may sin, and yet again may sin; yet still is he God’s handiwork, and still God is near by His handiwork to aid him ever to a fresh endeavour to righteousness.”

— Howard Pyle

20. “For any man may be a king in that life in which he is placed if so be he may draw forth the sword of success from out of the iron of circumstance. Where fore when your time of assay cometh, I do hope it may be with you as it was with Arthur that day, and that ye too may achieve success with entire satisfaction unto yourself and to your great glory and perfect happiness.”

— Howard Pyle

21. “The student learns rules but all the rules in the world never make a picture.”

— Howard Pyle

22. “Don’t take my criticisms as iron-clad rules but more as suggestions.”

— Howard Pyle

23. “My objective in teaching my pupils is that they should be fitted for any kind of art.”

— Howard Pyle

24. “Project your mind into your subject until you actually live in it.”

— Howard Pyle

25. “Once I slew a man, and never do I wish to slay a man again, for it is bitter for the soul to think thereon.”

— Howard Pyle

26. “I am of use to the younger artists through the advice and criticism which I give them.”

— Howard Pyle

27. “For ages past the Genius of Literature and the Genius of Art have walked together hand in hand. For the Goddess of letters is blind, and only she of Art can lend her sight.”

— Howard Pyle

28. “Marry,” quoth Robin, laughing, and weighing the flask in his hands ere he drank, “methinks it is no more than seemly of you all to be glad to see me, seeing that I bring sight to the blind, speech to the dumb, hearing to the deaf, and such a lusty leg to a lame man. I drink to your happiness, brothers, as I may not drink to your health, seeing ye are already hale, wind and limb.”

— Howard Pyle

29. “A good deal of large and rather interesting work is drifting my way.”

— Howard Pyle

30. “The right to suffer is one of the joys of a free economy.”

— Howard Pyle

31. “I take back all I ever said about the Old Masters. They give great lessons.”

— Howard Pyle

32. “Your subjects have had a history – try to reveal it in your picture.”

— Howard Pyle

33. “Now, you and I cannot go two ways at the same time while we join in these merry doings; so we will e’en let Little John follow his own path while we tuck up our skirts and trudge after Robin Hood.”

— Howard Pyle

34. “I should like to make myself free to all who care to attend my lectures.”

— Howard Pyle

35. “And now, dear friend, you who have journeyed with me in all these merry doings, I will not bid you follow me further, but will drop your hand here with a good den, if you wish it, for that which cometh herafter, speaks of the breaking up of things, and shows how joys and pleasures that are dead and gone can never be set upon their feet to walk again.”

— Howard Pyle

36. “And it was at this time that Sir Myles died of his hurt, for it is often so that death and misfortune befall some, whiles others laugh and sing for hope and joy, as though such grievous things as sorrow and death could never happen in the world wherein they live.”

— Howard Pyle

37. “Let me tell you, an I had the shaping of things in this world, ye should all three have been clothed in the finest silks, and ride upon milk-white horses, with pages at your side, and feed upon nothing but whipped cream and strawberries; for such a life would surely befit your looks.” At.”

— Howard Pyle

38. “Such were the travelers along the way; but fat abbot, rich esquire, or money-laden usurer came there none.”

— Howard Pyle

39. “However, if Sir Launcelot of the Lake failed now and then in his behavior, who is there in the world shall say, ‘I never fell into error’? And if he more than once offended, who is there shall have hardihood to say, ‘I never committed offence’?”

— Howard Pyle

40. “If in making a picture you introduce two ideas, you weaken it by half-if three, it weakens by compound ratio-if four, the picture will be really too weak to consider at all and the human interest would be entirely lost.”

— Howard Pyle

41. “I criticise these compositions by analysis but an illustration cannot be made that way – it must be made by inspiration.”

— Howard Pyle

42. “Paint ideas, paint thought.”

— Howard Pyle

43. “We were born to crucify the truth; it is our mission in life, and we must not be blamed when we fulfill our destiny.”

— Howard Pyle

44. “Then all was quiet save only for the low voices of those that talked together,... , and saving, also, for the mellow snoring of Friar Tuck, who enjoyed his sleep with a noise as of one sawing soft wood very slowly.”

— Howard Pyle

45. “I doubt if there is a single really excellent art school now available in New York.”

— Howard Pyle

46. “I cannot waste my time teaching mediocrity,” to J. Henry Harper, when he quit teaching an open-to-all illustrating class at Drexel Institute... from Where Your Heart Is... The Story of Harvey Dunn, Artist. page 32.”

— Howard Pyle

47. “Lo, God! I am Thy handiwork. I have sinned and have done great evil, yet I am still Thy handiwork, who hath made me what I am. So, though I may not undo that which I have done, yet I may, with Thy aid, do better hereafter than I have done heretofore.”

— Howard Pyle

48. “I think it likely that some of my pupils will reach unusual distinction.”

— Howard Pyle

49. “Truly, the world hath as many eyes to look upon a man withal as there are spots on a toad; so, with what pair of eyes thou regardest me lieth entirely with thine own self.”

— Howard Pyle