The essence of lying is in deception, not in words.

Whenever I did anything wrong, stupid or hard-hearted, and I have done many things that were all three, my mother always said "it is because you were too much indulged."

Nature is always mysterious and secret in her use of means; and art is always likest her when it is most inexplicable.

In all things that live there are certain irregularities, and deficiencies which are not only signs of life, but sources of beauty. No human face is exactly the same in its lines on each side, no leaf perfect in its lobes, no branch in its symmetry.

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

There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey.

The imagination is never governed, it is always the ruling and divine power.