Better the rudest work that tells a story or records a fact, than the richest without meaning.

Superstition, in all times and among all nations, is the fear of a spirit whose passions are those of a man, whose acts are the acts of a man; who is present in some places, not in others; who makes no places holy and not others; who is kind to one person, unkind to another; who is pleased or angry according to the degree of attention you pay him, or praise you refuse to him; who is hostile generally to human pleasure, but may be bribed by sacrifice of a part of that pleasure into permitting the rest. This, whatever form of faith it colors, is the essence of superstition.

The only absolutely and unapproachably heroic element in the soldier's work seems to be-that he is paid little for it-and regularly.

No picture can be good which deceives by its imitation, for the very reason that nothing can be beautiful which is not true.

Know thyself, for through thyself only thou canst know God.

No person who is not a great sculptor or painter can be an architect. If he is not a sculptor or painter, he can only be a builder.

But if, indeed, there be a nobler life in us than in these strangely moving atoms; if, indeed, there is an eternal difference between the fire which inhabits them, and that which animates us,--it must be shown, by each of us in his appointed place, not merely in the patience, but in the activity of our hope, not merely by our desire, but our labor, for the time when the dust of the generations of men shall be confirmed for foundations of the gates of the city of God.