There is no climate, no place, and scarcely an hour, in which nature does not exhibit color which no mortal effort can imitate or approach. For all our artificial pigments are, even when seen under the same circumstances, dead and lightless beside her living color; nature exhibits her hues under an intensity of sunlight which trebles their brilliancy.

The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world... to see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion all in one.

Imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know of life. It is the sign of life in a mortal body, that is to say, of a state of progress and change. Nothing that lives is, or can be rigidly perfect; part of it is decaying, part nascent.

He is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the sum of his works, the greatest number of the greatest ideas.

What right have you to take the word wealth, which originally meant well-being, and degrade and narrow it by confining it to certain sorts of material objects measured by money.

It is in this power of saying everything, and yet saying nothing too plainly, that the perfection of art consists.

Whenever you see want or misery or degradation in this world about you, then be sure either industry has been wanting, or industry has been in error.