Obedience is, indeed, founded on a kind of freedom, else it would become mere subjugation, but that freedom is only granted that obedience may be more perfect; and thus while a measure of license is necessary to exhibit the individual energies of things, the fairness and pleasantness and perfection of them all consist in their restraint.

Art is not a study of positive reality, it is the seeking for ideal truth.

... Amongst all the mechanical poison that this terrible nineteenth century has poured upon men, it has given us at any rate one antidote - the Daguerreotype. (1845)

Society has sacrificed its virtues to the Goddess of Getting Along.

All the other passions do occasional good, but whenever pride puts in its word, everything goes wrong, and what it might really be desirable to do, quietly and innocently, it is mortally dangerous to do, proudly.

Whereas it has long been known and declared that the poor have no right to the property of the rich, I wish it also to be known and declared that the rich have no right to the property of the poor.

Men cannot not live by exchanging articles, but producing them. They live by work not trade.