One evening, when I was yet in my nurse's arms, I wanted to touch the tea urn, which was boiling merrily ... My nurse would have taken me away from the urn, but my mother said "Let him touch it." So I touched it - and that was my first lesson in the meaning of liberty.

You will never love art well until you love what she mirrors better.

What do we, as a nation, care about books? How much do you think we spend altogether on our libraries, public or private, as compared with what we spend on our horses?

That which seems to be wealth may in verity be only the gilded index of far reaching ruin

The finer the nature, the more flaws it will show through the clearness of it; and it is a law of this universe that the best things shall be seldomest seen in their best form.

The object of true education is to make people not merely do the right things, but enjoy them

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