Music is the fourth great material want, first food, then clothes, then shelter, then music.

I once asked a distinguished artist what place he gave to labor in art. "Labor," he in effect said, "is the beginning, the middle, and the end of art." Turning then to another--"And you," I inquired, "what do you consider as the great force in art?" "Love," he replied. In their two answers I found but one truth.

Panic is a sudden desertion of us, and a going over to the enemy of our imagination.

Merit is never so conspicuous as when coupled with an obscure origin, just as the moon never appears so lustrous as when it emerges from a cloud.

Vanity in an old man is charming. It is a proof of an open, nature. Eighty winters have not frozen him up, or taught him concealments. In a young person it is simply allowable; we do not expect him to be above it.

Love's sweetest meanings are unspoken; the full heart knows no rhetoric of words.

Earnestness is the devotion of all the faculties.