It is a strange thing how little in general people know about the sky. It is the part of creation in which nature has done more for the sake of pleasing man.

No one can become rich by the efforts of only their toil, but only by the discovery of some method of taxing the labor of others.

Architecture is the work of nations

It is excellent discipline for an author to feel that he must say all he has to say in the fewest possible words, or his reader is sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words, or his reader will certainly misunderstand them. Generally, also, a downright fact may be told in a plain way; and we want downright facts at present more than anything else.

Like other beautiful things in this world, its end (that of a shaft) is to be beautiful; and, in proportion to its beauty, it receives permission to be otherwise useless. We do not blame emeralds and rubies because we cannot make them into heads of hammers.

Come, ye cold winds, at January's call, On whistling wings, and with white flakes bestrew The earth.

Man's only true happiness is to live in hope of something to be won by him.