The first great law is to obey.

The present age has witnessed an extraordinary increase of a thinking public, by the facilities afforded to the diffusion of reading; the former happy resignation to ignorance begins to make way for a state of half-enlightenment, and few persons are willing to remain in the condition in which their birth has placed then.

No doubt the artist is the child of his time; but woe to him if he is also its disciple, or even its favorite.

Stubbornness is not firmness.

The painter is, as to the execution of his work, a mechanic; but as to his conception and spirit and design he is hardly below even the poet.

Of all the possessions of this life fame is the noblest; when the body has sunk into the dust the great name still lives.

Have Hope. Though clouds environs now, And gladness hides her face in scorn, Put thou the shadow from thy brow, - No night but hath its morn.