In old times men used their powers of painting to show the objects of faith, in later times they use the objects of faith to show their powers of painting.

Science deals exclusively with things as they are in themselves; and art exclusively with things as they affect the human sense and human soul.

Great art is precisely that which never was, nor will be taught, it is preeminently and finally the expression of the spirits of great men.

If some people really see angels where others see only empty space, let them paint the angels: only let not anybody else think they can paint an angel too, on any calculated principles of the angelic.

You were made for enjoyment, and the world was filled with things which you will enjoy, unless you are too proud to be pleased with them, or too grasping to care for what you can not turn to other account than mere delight.

What is the cheapest to you now is likely to be the dearest to you in the end.

It is perhaps the principal admirableness of the Gothic schools of architecture, that they receive the results of the labour of inferior minds; and out of fragments full of imperfectionraise up a stately and unaccusable whole.