To yield reverence to another, to hold ourselves and our lives at his disposal, is not slavery; often, it is the noblest state in which a man can live in this world.

Government and cooperation are in all things the laws of life. Anarchy and competition, the laws of death.

The Spirit power begins in directing the Animal power to other than egoistic ends.

Imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know of life. It is the sign of life in a mortal body, that is to say, of a state of progress and change. Nothing that lives is, or can be rigidly perfect; part of it is decaying, part nascent.

Men are more evanescent than pictures, yet one sorrows for lost friends, and pictures are my friends. I have none others. I am never long enough with men to attach myself to them; and whatever feelings of attachment I have are to material things.

There is no action so slight or so mean but it may be done to a great purpose, and ennobled thereby.

All great art is the work of the whole living creature, body and soul, and chiefly of the soul.