Art may varnish and gild, but it can do no more.

We have built for this world a family mansion, and the next a family tomb. The best works of art are the expression of man's struggle to free himself from this condition, but the effect of our art is merely to make this low state comfortable and that higher state to be forgotten.

So easy is it, though many housekeepers doubt it, to establish new and better customs in the place of the old.

In the religion of all nations a purity is hinted at, which, I fear, men never attain to.

There is no doubt that the loftiest written wisdom is either rhymed or in some way musically measured,--is, in form as well as substance, poetry; and a volume which should contain the condensed wisdom of mankind need not have one rhythmless line.

I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.

The universe constantly and obediently answers to our conceptions; whether we travel fast or slow, the track is laid for us.