If all art aspires to the condition of music, all the sciences aspire to the condition of mathematics.

History is always written wrong, and so always needs to be rewritten.

Beautiful things, when taste is formed, are obviously and unaccountably beautiful.

Nature drives with a loose rein and vitality of any sort can blunder through many a predicament in which reason would despair.

Gnomic wisdom, however, is notoriously polychrome, and proverbs depend for their truth entirely on the occasion they are applied to. Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.

To condemn spontaneous and delightful occupations because they are useless for self-preservation shows an uncritical prizing of life irrespective of its content.

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.