Let every dawn of morning be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close: — then let every one of these short lives leave its sure record of some kindly thing done for others — some goodly strength or knowledge gained for yourselves.

Another of the strange and evil tendencies of the present day is the decoration of the railroad station... There was never more flagrant nor impertinent folly than the smallest portion of ornament in anything connected with the railroads... Railroad architecture has or would have a dignity of its own if it were only left to its work.

The power of association is stronger than the power of beauty; therefore, the power of association is the power of beauty.

Labor rids us of three great evils; tediousness, vice, and poverty.

No human being, however great, or powerful, was ever so free as a fish.

Men are merely on a lower or higher stage of an eminence, whose summit is God's throne infinitely above all; and there is just as much reason for the wisest as for the simplest man being discontent with his position, as respects the real quantity of knowledge he possesses.

Great art is precisely that which never was, nor will be taught, it is preeminently and finally the expression of the spirits of great men.