... the weakest among us has a gift, however seemingly trivial, which is peculiar to him, and which, worthily used, will be a gift also to his race forever.

All great art is the expression of man's delight in God's work, not his own.

The plea of ignorance will never take away our responsibilities.

Beethoven always sounds to me like the upsetting of a bag of nails, with here and there an also dropped hammer.

Every human action gains in honor, in grace, in all true magnificence, by its regard to things that are to come. It is the far sight, the quiet and confident patience, that, above all other attributes, separate man from man, and near him to his Maker; and there is no action nor art, whose majesty we may not measure by this test.

Science deals exclusively with things as they are in themselves; and art exclusively with things as they affect the human sense and human soul.

Greatness is the aggregation of minuteness; nor can its sublimity be felt truthfully by any mind unaccustomed to the affectionate watching of what is least.