I wish I had eight pairs of hands, and another body to shoot the specimens.

I can scarcely manage to scribble a tolerable English letter. I know that I am not a scholar, but meantime I am aware that no man living knows better than I do the habits of our birds.

Poor France, thy fine climate, rich vineyards, and the wishes of the learned avail nothing; thou art a destitute beggar, and not the powerful friend thou wert represented to me.

To have been torn from the study would have been as death; my time was entirely occupied with art.

If I can procure three hundred good substantial names of persons, or bodies, or institutions, I cannot fail to do well for my family, although I must abandon my life to its success, and undergo many sad perplexities and perhaps never see again my own beloved America.

I looked long and carefully at the picture of a stag painted by Landseer - the style was good, and the brush was handled with fine effect, but he fails in copying Nature, without which the best work will be a failure.

Almost every day, instead of going to school when I ought to have gone, I usually made for the fields, where I spent the day.