Every art, like our own, has in its composition fluctuating as well as fixed principles. It is an attentive inquiry into their difference that will enable us to determine how far we are influenced by custom and habit, and what is fixed in the nature of things.


A discourse: delivered to the students of the Royal Academy, on the distribution of the prizes (ed. 1777)

Joshua Reynolds Quotes

Every art, like our own, has in its composition fluctuating as well as fixed principles. It is an attentive inquiry into their difference that will...

Every art, like our own, has in its composition fluctuating as well as fixed principles. It is an attentive inquiry into their difference that will...

Every art, like our own, has in its composition fluctuating as well as fixed principles. It is an attentive inquiry into their difference that will...

Every art, like our own, has in its composition fluctuating as well as fixed principles. It is an attentive inquiry into their difference that will...