He who can take no interest in what is small will take false interest in what is great.

Disorder in a drawing-room is vulgar; in an antiquary's study, not; the black battle-stain on a soldier's face is not vulgar, but the dirty face of a housemaid is.

We require from buildings two kinds of goodness: first, the doing their practical duty well: then that they be graceful and pleasing in doing it.

Men have commonly more pleasure in the criticism which hurts than in that which is innocuous, and are more tolerant of the severity which breaks hearts and ruins fortunes than of that which falls impotently on the grave.

There is no law of history any more than of a kaleidoscope.

No architecture can be truly noble which is not imperfect.

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