Depend upon it, the first universal characteristic of all great art is Tenderness, as the second is Truth. I find this more and more every day: an infinitude of tenderness is the chief gift and inheritance of all the truly great men. It is sure to involve a relative intensity of disdain towards base things, and an appearance of sternness and arrogance in the eyes of all hard, stupid, and vulgar people

At every moment of our lives we should be trying to find out, not in what we differ with other people, but in what we agree with them.

Commerce is the agency by which the power of choice is obtained.

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

When I have been unhappy, I have heard an opera... and it seemed the shrieking of winds; when I am happy, a sparrow's chirp is delicious to me. But it is not the chirp that makes me happy, but I that make it sweet.

Many thoughts are so dependent upon the language in which they are clothed that they would lose half their beauty if otherwise expressed.

... 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.