The best men in all ages keep classic traditions alive

Government is the political representative of a natural equilibrium, of custom, of inertia; it is by no means a representative of reason.

Lovely promise and quick ruin are seen nowhere better than in Gothic architecture.

To understand oneself is the classic form of consolation; to elude oneself is the romantic.

With an artist no sane man quarrels, any more than with the colour of a child's eyes.

Photography at first was asked to do nothing but embalm our best smiles for the benefit of our friends and our best clothes for the amusement of posterity. Neither thing lasts, and photography came as a welcome salve to keep those precious, if slightly ridiculous, things a little longer in the world.

Most men's conscience, habits, and opinions are borrowed from convention and gather continually comforting assurances from the same social consensus that originally suggested them.