No picture can be good which deceives by its imitation, for the very reason that nothing can be beautiful which is not true.

Drawing is a means of obtaining and communicating knowledge

Our respect for the dead, when they are just dead, is something wonderful, and the way we show it more wonderful still. We show it with black feathers and black horses; we show it with black dresses and black heraldries; we show it with costly obelisks and sculptures of sorrow, which spoil half of our beautiful cathedrals. We show it with frightful gratings and vaults, and lids of dismal stone, in the midst of the quiet grass; and last, and not least, we show it by permitting ourselves to tell any number of falsehoods we think amiable or credible in the epitaph.

I know few Christians so convinced of the splendor of the rooms in their Father's house, as to be happier when their friends are called to those mansions... Nor has the Church's ardent "desire to depart, and be with Christ," ever cured it of the singular habit of putting on mourning for every person summoned to such departure.

To cultivate sympathy you must be among living creatures, and thinking about them; and to cultivate admiration, you must be among beautiful things and looking at them.

That admiration of the 'neat but not gaudy,' which is commonly reported to have influenced the devil when he painted his tail pea green.

Wherever men are noble, they love bright colour; and wherever they can live healthily, bright colour is given them—in sky, sea, flowers, and living creatures.