My entire delight was in observing without being myself noticed,- if I could have been invisible, all the better. . . to be in the midst of it, and rejoice and wonder at it, and help it if I could, - happier if it needed no help of mine, - this was the essential love of Nature in me, this the root of all that I have usefully become, and the light of all that I have rightly learned.

Drawing is a means of obtaining and communicating knowledge

They are good furniture pictures, unworthy of praise, and undeserving of blame.

There is no wealth but life.

Nature is always mysterious and secret in her use of means; and art is always likest her when it is most inexplicable.

Large fortunes are all founded either on the occupation of land, or lending or the taxation of labor.

It is a matter of the simplest demonstration, that no man can be really appreciated but by his equal or superior.