Of all God's gifts to the sighted man, color is holiest, the most divine, the most solemn.

That which seems to be wealth may in verity be only the gilded index of far reaching ruin

You should read books like you take medicine, by advice, and not by advertisement.

Taste is the only morality. Tell me what you like and I'll tell you what you are.

High art consists neither in altering, nor in improving nature; but in seeking throughout nature for 'whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are pure;' in loving these, in displaying to the utmost of the painter's power such loveliness as is in them, and directing the thoughts of others to them by winning art, or gentle emphasis.

We must note carefully what distinction there is between a healthy and a diseased love of change; for as it was in healthy love of change that the Gothic architecture rose, it was partly in consequence of diseased love of change that it was destroyed.

You may chisel a boy into shape, as you would a rock, or hammer him into it, if he be of a better kind, as you would a piece of bronze. But you cannot hammer a girl into anything. She grows as a flower does.