It is far more difficult to be simple than to be complicated; far more difficult to sacrifice skill and easy execution in the proper place, than to expand both indiscriminately.

Human work must be done honourably and thoroughly, because we are now Men; whether we ever expect to be angels, or were ever slugs, being practically no matter.

To banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality.

I tell you (dogmatically, if you like to call it so, knowing it well) a square inch of man's engraving is worth all the photographs that were ever dipped in acid... Believe me, photography can do against line engraving just what Madame Tussaud's wax-work can do against sculpture. That and no more. (1865)

Architecture concerns itself only with those characters of an edifice which are above and beyond its common use.

To follow art for the sake of being a great man, and therefore to cast about continually for some means of achieving position or attracting admiration, is the surest way of ending in total extinction.

The first test of a truly great man is his humility. By humility I don't mean doubt of his powers or hesitation in speaking his opinion, but merely an understanding of the relationship of what he can say and what he can do.