Thoughts and emotions which never perhaps were in the mind of the artist, never were anticipated, never were intended by him - may be strongly suggested by his work. This is an important part of the morals of art, which we must never lose sight of. Art is not only for pleasure and profit, but for good and for evil.

We can sometimes love what we do not understand, but it is impossible completely to understand what we do not love.

In the art of design, color is to form what verse is to prose,--a more harmonious and luminous vehicle of the thought.

As the rolling stone gathers no moss, so the roving heart gathers no affections.

You must never believe what the newspapers say. I stand aghast at the impudence of the lies they contain, things not only false in fact, but absolutely impossible.

Even virtue itself, all perfect as it is, requires to be inspirited by passion; for duties are but coldly performed which are but philosophically fulfilled.

When we talk of leaving our childhood behind us, we might as well say that the river flowing onward to the sea had left the fountain behind.