Though you may have known clever men who were indolent, you never knew a great man who was so; and when I hear a young man spoken of as giving promise of great genius, the first question I ask about him always is, Does he work?

The art which we may call generally art of the wayside, as opposed to that which is the business of men's lives, is, in the best sense of the word, Grotesque.

We must note carefully what distinction there is between a healthy and a diseased love of change; for as it was in healthy love of change that the Gothic architecture rose, it was partly in consequence of diseased love of change that it was destroyed.

There is no music in a “rest” that I know of, but there's the making of music in it. And people are always missing that part of the life melody.

Music when healthy, is the teacher of perfect order, and when depraved, the teacher of perfect disorder.

The common practice of keeping up appearances with society is a mere selfish struggle of the vain with the vain.

Much of the character of everyman may be read in his house.