Greatness is not a teachable nor gainable thing, but the expression of the mind of a God-made great man.

Absolute ugliness is admitted as rarely as perfect beauty; but degrees of it more or less distinct are associated with whatever has the nature of death and sin, just as beauty is associated with what has the nature of virtue and of life.

As unity demanded for its expression what at first might have seemed its opposite--variety; so repose demands for its expression the implied capability of its opposite--energy. It is the most unfailing test of beauty; nothing can be ignoble that possesses it, nothing right that has it not.

Doing is the great thing, for if people resolutely do what is right, they come in time to like doing it.

And remember, child, that nothing is ever done beautifully, which is done in rivalship; or nobly, which is done in pride.

It is not how much one makes but to what purpose one spends.

The virtue of the imagination is its reaching, by intuition and intensity, a more essential truth than is seen at the surface of things.