Imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know of life. It is the sign of life in a mortal body, that is to say, of a state of progress and change. Nothing that lives is, or can be rigidly perfect; part of it is decaying, part nascent.

People cannot live by lending money to one another.

The art of nations is to be accumulative, just as science and history are; the work of living men not superseding, but building itself upon the work of the past.

I cannot but think it an evil sign of a people when their houses are built to last for one generation only.

When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought is incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do.

He who is not actively kind is cruel!

You will never love art well until you love what she mirrors better.