... 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)

Curiosity is a gift, a capacity of pleasure in knowing, which if you destroy, you make yourself cold and dull.

The power of association is stronger than the power of beauty; therefore, the power of association is the power of beauty.

At every moment of our lives we should be trying to find out, not in what we differ with other people, but in what we agree with them.

I believe that there is no test of greatness in periods, nations or men more sure than the development, among them or in them, of a noble grotesque, and no test of comparative smallness or limitation, of one kind or another, more sure than the absence of grotesque invention, or incapability of understanding it.

He that would be angry and sin not, must not be angry with anything but sin.

Beauty deprived of its proper foils and adjuncts ceases to be enjoyed as beauty, just as light deprived of all shadows ceases to be enjoyed as light.