Charles Robert Leslie

"Turner was a very different man to Constable, yet quite like him in one respect, namely, his entire reliance on a guide within himself, always a characteristic of genius."

"Turner did not talk well, and never talked of his own art, or of the art of others."

"It was impossible however not to like Turner, there was something so social and cordial in his nature and I believe him to have had a excellent heart."

"Turner will be placed in that class whose genius is such that we can never praise him too much or blame him too much."

"Turner is my great favourite of all the painters here. He combines the highest poetical imagination with an exquisite feeling for all the truth and individuality of nature; and he has shown that the ideal, as it is called, is not the improving of Nature, but the selecting and combining objects that are most in harmony and character with each other."

"Writing letters with me is not a thing that can be done at odd scraps of time. I must sit down, compose myself & collect all of my thoughts."

"From sheer indolence great mistakes are often made in re-presentation."

"The gentleness, so utterly removed from insipidity, of Raphael, is a thing of which true taste never tires."

"To me the prevailing tone of Rembrandt's mind, as shown in his art, is serenity. Where the subject allows him, his natural disposition seems always tranquil. He is the painter of repose."