It is the root of all religion that a man knows that he is nothing in order to thank God that he is something.

The beautification of the world is not a work of nature, but a work of art, then it involves an artist.

Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things in my pocket. But I found it would be too long; and the age of the great epics is past.

When the chord of monotony is stretched to its tightest, it breaks with the sound of a song.

We should always endeavor to wonder at the permanent thing, not at the mere exception. We should be startled by the sun, and not by the eclipse. We should wonder less at the earthquake, and wonder more at the earth.

Very few people in the world would care to listen to the real defense of their own characters. The real defense, the defense which belongs to the Day of Judgment, would make such damaging admissions, would clear away so many artificial virtues, would tell such tragedies of weakness and failure, that a man would sooner be misunderstood and censured by the world than exposed to that awful and merciless eulogy.

All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks.