Absolute ugliness is admitted as rarely as perfect beauty; but degrees of it more or less distinct are associated with whatever has the nature of death and sin, just as beauty is associated with what has the nature of virtue and of life.

God will put up with a great many things in the human heart, but there is one thing that He will not put up with in it--a second place. He who offers God a second place, offers Him no place.

When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.

Great art is precisely that which never was, nor will be taught, it is preeminently and finally the expression of the spirits of great men.

To do your own work well, whether it be for life or death.

He who has learned what is commonly considered the whole art of painting, that is, the art of representing any natural object faithfully, has as yet only learned the language by which his thoughts are to be expressed.

I cannot but think it an evil sign of a people when their houses are built to last for one generation only.