Natural abilities can almost compensate for the want of every kind of cultivation, but no cultivation of the mind can make up for the want of natural abilities.

The work of science is to substitute facts for appearances, and demonstrations for impressions.

That man is always happy who is in the presence of something which he cannot know to the full, which he is always going on to know.

Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together.

All of one's life is music, if one touches the notes rightly, and in time.

Everything that you can see in the world around you presents itself to your eyes only as an arrangement of patches of different colors.

There is rough work to be done, and rough men must do it; there is gentle work to be done, and gentlemen must do it.