That admiration of the 'neat but not gaudy,' which is commonly reported to have influenced the devil when he painted his tail pea green.

Though nature is constantly beautiful, she does not exhibit her highest powers of beauty constantly, for then they would satiate us and pall upon our senses. It is necessary to their appreciation that they should be rarely shown. Her finest touches are things which must be watched for; her most perfect passages of beauty are the most evanescent.

The man who says to one, go, and he goeth, and to another, come, and he cometh, has, in most cases, more sense of restraint and difficulty than the man who obeys him.

When a man is wrapped up in himself, he makes a pretty small package.

The step between practical and theoretic science, is the step between the miner and the geologist, the apocathecary and the chemist.

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.

No art can be noble which is incapable of expressing thought, and no art is capable of expressing thought which does not change.