Nothing has raised more questioning among my critics thanthese wordsönoble, thegrand style† Ithink it will be found that the grand style arises in poetry, when a noble nature, poetically gifted, treats with simplicity or with severity a serious subject.

-Arnold, Matthew
  On Translating Homer; Last Words.

Rem tene, verba sequentur. Stick to your subject, and words will follow.

-'the Censor'
Attributed advice to orators. Quoted in Gaius  Julius Victor  Ars Rhetorica,'De inventione'.

There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person.

-Chesterton, G(ilbert) K(eith)
  Heretics, ch.3.

Spare the poet for his subject's sake.

-Cowper,William
  Poems,'Charity', l.636.

I do not paint a portrait to look like the subject, rather does the person grow to look like his portrait.

-Dal|¤  , Salvador
Quoted in Esar A  Treasury of Humorous Quotations (1951).

It is essential to do the same subject over again, ten times, a hundred times.

-Degas, (Hilaire Germain) Edgar
  Letter to Bartholome¤  ,17  Jan.

A propriety of thoughts and words; or, in other terms, thought and words elegantly adapted to the subject.

-Dryden,John
  Definition of wit.'The  Author's  Apology for Heroic Poetry and Heroic Licence', an essay prefacing State of Innocence, a libretto based on Paradise Lost.

The most important thing about photographing people isnot clicking the shutter†it is clicking with the subject.

-Eisenstaedt, Alfred
  Witness to Our Time.

An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in his subject and who manages to avoid them.

-Heisenberg,Werner
  Der Teil und das Ganze, translated by A  J Pomerans as Physics and Beyond (1971).

In this country, my Lords†the individual subject†has nothing to do with the laws but to obey them.

-Horsley, Samuel
  Speech in the House of Lords,13 Nov.

If you are ever at a loss to support a flagging conversation, introduce the subject of eating.

-Hunt, (James Henry) Leigh
Table-Talk,'Eating'.

   Knowledge is oftwo kinds.We knowa subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.

-Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson
  Remark,18  Apr. Quoted in  James Boswell  The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), vol.2.

Happily, there is nothing in the laws of value which remains for the present or any future writer to clear up; the theory of the subject is complete.

-Mill,John Stuart
  Principles of Political Economy, with Some Applications to Social Philosophy.

   My celestial patroness, who deigns Her nightly visitation unimplored, And dictates to me slumbering, or inspires Easy my unpremeditated verse: Since first this subject for heroic song Pleased me long choosing, and beginning late.

-Milton,John
  Paradise Lost (published1667), bk.9, l.21^6.

Certes, c'est un sujet merveilleusement vain, divers et ondoyant, que l'homme. Man (in good earnest) is a marvellous vain, fickle, and unstable subject.

-Montaigne, Michel Eyquem de
  Essais, bk.1, ch.1 (translated by Charles Cotton).

   I have always wanted to develop a way of writing that was irrevocably black. I don't have the resources of a musician but I thought that if it was truly black literature, it would not be black because Iwas, it would notevenbe black because of its subject matter. It would be something intrinsic, indigenous, something in the way it was put togetheröthe sentences, the structure, texture and toneöso that anyone who read it would realize.

-Morrison,Toni Chloe Anthony ne¤  e Wofford
Quoted in Paul Gilroy Small  Acts (1993),'Living memory: a meeting with Toni Morrison'.

I therefore fearlessly challenge the verdict which this house†is to give on the question now brought before it†whether, as the Roman, in days of old, held himself free from indignity, when he could say Civis Romanus sum; so also a British subject, in whatever land he may be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye and the strong arm of England will protect him against injustice and wrong.

-Palmerston, HenryJohnTemple, 3rd Viscount
  From his four-and-a-half hour Don Pacifico speech, Jun. Don Pacifico was a PortugueseJew resident in Athens, born in Gibraltar and therefore a British subject. In support of his claims for compensation from the Greek government for damage done to his property by a mob, Palmerston sent the British fleet to blockade Piraeus and brought the two countries to the brink of war.

L'homme n'est qu'un sujet plein d'erreur, naturelle et ineffa c° able sans la gra"  ce. Man is nothing but a subject full of natural error that cannot be eradicated except through grace.

-Pascal, Blaise
c.1654^1662  Pense¤  es, no.83 (translated byA Krailsheimer).

The spirit that now resists your taxation in America is†the same spirit that established the great fundamental, essential maxim of your libertiesöthat no subject of England shall betaxed but byhis ownconsent. The glorious spirit of Whiggismanimates three million in America, who prefer poverty with liberty to gilded chains and sordid affluence; and who will die in defence of their rights as men, as free men.

-Pitt,William, 1st Earl of Chatham known as  the Elder
  Speech to the House of Lords, 20 Jan.

The grand manner consists of four elements: subject or theme, concept, structure, and style. The first requirement, fundamental to all the others, is that the subject and the narrative be grandiose, such as battles, heroic actions, and religious themes.

-Poussin, Nicolas
Quoted in Giovanni Pietro Bellori Lives of the Modern Painters (1672).