A nation which lives a pastoral and innocent life never decorates the shepherd's staff or the plough-handle; but races who live by depredation and slaughter nearly always bestow exquisite ornaments on the quiver, the helmet, and the spear.

I have not written in vain if I have heretofore done anything towards diminishing the reputation of the Renaissance landscape painting.

The step between practical and theoretic science, is the step between the miner and the geologist, the apocathecary and the chemist.

All great art is the work of the whole living creature, body and soul, and chiefly of the soul.

The truth of Nature is a part of the truth of God; to him who does not search it out, darkness; to him who does, infinity.

To be able to ask a question clearly is two-thirds of the way to getting it answered.

Greatness is not a teachable nor gainable thing, but the expression of the mind of a God-made great man.