Society is like the air, necessary to breathe but insufficient to live on.

It takes a wonderful brain and exquisite senses to produce a few stupid ideas.

The highest form of vanity is love of fame.

Men almost universally have acknowledged providence, but that fact has had no force to destroy natural aversions and fears in the presence of events.

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.

The fly that prefers sweetness to a long life may drown in honey.

Beauty is a pledge of the possible conformity between the soul and nature, and consequently a ground of faith in the supremacy of the good.