Courage, so far as it is a sign of race, is peculiarly the mark of a gentleman or a lady; but it becomes vulgar if rude or insensitive, while timidity is not vulgar, if it be a characteristic of race or fineness of make. A fawn is not vulgar in being timid, nor a crocodile "gentle" because courageous.

The fact of our deriving constant pleasure from whatever is a type or semblance of divine attributes, and from nothing but that which is so, is the most glorious of all that can be demonstrated of human nature; it not only sets a great gulf of specific separation between us and the lower animals, but it seems a promise of a communion ultimately deep, close, and conscious, with the Being whose darkened manifestations we here feebly and unthinkingly delight in.

Of all God's gifts to the sighted man, color is holiest, the most divine, the most solemn.

The virtue of the imagination is its reaching, by intuition and intensity, a more essential truth than is seen at the surface of things.

The noble grotesque involves the true appreciation of beauty.

Bread of flour is good; but there is bread, sweet as honey, if we would eat it, in a good book.

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