Why is one man richer than another? Because he is more industrious, more persevering and more sagacious.

The names of great painters are like passing-bells: in the name of Velasquez you hear sounded the fall of Spain; .in the name of Titian, that of Venice; in the name of Leonardo, that of Milan; in the name of Raphael, that of Rome. And there is profound justice in this, for in proportion to the nobleness of the power is the guilt of its use for purposes vain or vile; and hitherto the greater the art, the more surely has it been used, and used solely, for the decoration of pride or the provoking of sensuality.

I believe the right question to ask, respecting all ornament, is simply this; was it done with enjoyment, was the carver happy while he was about it?

The constant duty of every man to his fellows is to ascertain his own powers and special gifts, and to strengthen them for the help of others.

The man who can see all gray, and red, and purples in a peach, will paint the peach rightly round, and rightly altogether. But the man who has only studied its roundness may not see its purples and grays, and if he does not will never get it to look like a peach; so that great power over color is always a sign of large general art-intellect.

Some slaves are scoured to their work by whips, others by their restlessness and ambition.

The step between practical and theoretic science, is the step between the miner and the geologist, the apocathecary and the chemist.