Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.

As unity demanded for its expression what at first might have seemed its opposite--variety; so repose demands for its expression the implied capability of its opposite--energy. It is the most unfailing test of beauty; nothing can be ignoble that possesses it, nothing right that has it not.

Science deals exclusively with things as they are in themselves.

All really great pictures exhibit the general habits of nature, manifested in some peculiar, rare, and beautiful way.

... A power of obtaining veracity in the representation of material and tangible things, which, within certain limits and conditions, is unimpeachable, has now been placed in the hands of all men, almost without labour. (1853)

Once thoroughly our own, the knowledge ceases to give us pleasure.

I know well that happiness is in little things.