Though it might have its momentary alarms, paternity is not an exciting vocation.

If I were to live my life over again, I would be an American. I would steep myself in America, I would know no other land.

People can be in general pretty well trusted, of course--with the clock of their freedom ticking as loud as it seems to do here--to keep an eye on the fleeting hour.

Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.

Art does not lie in copying nature.- Nature furnishes the material by means of which is to express a beauty still unexpressed in nature.-The artist beholds in nature more than she herself is conscious of.

Criticism talks a good deal of nonsense, but even its nonsense is a useful force. It keeps the question of art before the world, insists upon its importance.

To criticize is to appreciate, to appropriate, to take intellectual possession, to establish in fine a relation with the criticized thing and to make it one's own.