The noble grotesque involves the true appreciation of beauty.

Imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know in life.

Why is one man richer than another? Because he is more industrious, more persevering and more sagacious.

Hope- the recognition, by true foresight, of better things to be reached here after.

I tell you (dogmatically, if you like to call it so, knowing it well) a square inch of man's engraving is worth all the photographs that were ever dipped in acid... Believe me, photography can do against line engraving just what Madame Tussaud's wax-work can do against sculpture. That and no more. (1865)

The finer the nature, the more flaws it will show through the clearness of it; and it is a law of this universe that the best things shall be seldomest seen in their best form.

Greater completion marks the progress of art, absolute completion usually its decline.