What furniture can give such finish to a room as a tender woman's face? And is there any harmony of tints that has such stirring of delight as the sweet modulation of her voice?

I have nothing to tell except travellers' stories, which are always tiresome, like the description of a play which was very exciting to those who saw it.

Hobbies are apt to run away with us, you know; it doesn't do to be run away with. We must keep the reins.

A mother's yearning feels the presence of the cherished child even in the degraded man.

In Rome it seems as if there were so many things which are more wanted in the world than pictures.

Our consciousness rarely registers the beginning of a growth within us any more than without us; there have been many circulation of the sap before we detect the smallest sign of the bud.

Genius ... is necessarily intolerant of fetters.