Fashion is something barbarous, for it produces innovation without reason and imitation without benefit.

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

We must welcome the future, remembering that soon it will be the past; and we must respect the past, remembering that it was once all that was humanly possible.

The works of nature first acquire a meaning in the commentaries they provoke.

Our occasional madness is less wonderful than our occasional sanity.

There is a kind of courtesy in skepticism. It would be an offense against polite conventions to press our doubts too far.

Manhood and sagacity ripen of themselves; it suffices not to repress or distort them.