The only absolutely and unapproachably heroic element in the soldier's work seems to be-that he is paid little for it-and regularly.

In old times men used their powers of painting to show the objects of faith, in later times they use the objects of faith to show their powers of painting.

Our purity of taste is best tested by its universality, for if we can only admire this thing or that, we maybe use that our cause for liking is of a finite and false nature.

Nearly all our powerful men in this age of the world are unbelievers; the best of them in doubt and misery; the worst in reckless defiance; the plurality, in plodding hesitation, doing, as well as they can, what practical work lies ready to their hands.

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)

Surely our clergy need not be surprised at the daily increasing distrust in the public mind of the efficacy of prayer.

Music when healthy, is the teacher of perfect order, and when depraved, the teacher of perfect disorder.