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

There is no harm in anybody thinking that Christ is in bread. The harm is in the expectation of His presence in gunpowder.

Much of the character of everyman may be read in his house.

Imaginary evils soon become real one by indulging our reflections on them.

It is a shallow criticism that would define poetry as confined to literary productions in rhyme and meter rhythm. The written poem is only poetry talking, and the statue, the picture, and the musical composition are poetry acting. Milton and Goethe, at their desks, were not more truly poets than Phidias with his chisel, Raphael at his easel, or deaf Beethoven bending over his piano, inventing and producing strains, which he himself could never hope to hear.

God has lent us the earth for our life; it is a great entail. It belongs as much to those who are to come after us, and whose names are already written in the book of creation, as to us; and we have no right, by anything that we do or neglect, to involve them in unnecessary penalties, or deprive them of benefits which it was in our power to bequeath.

Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together.