Everything that you can see in the world around you presents itself to your eyes only as an arrangement of patches of different colors.

There is no harm in anybody thinking that Christ is in bread. The harm is in the expectation of His presence in gunpowder.

Genius is only a superior power of seeing.

Children see in their parents the past, their parents see in them the future; and if we find more love in the parents for their children than in children for their parents, this is sad but natural. Who does not entertain his hopes more than his recollections.

It is in this power of saying everything, and yet saying nothing too plainly, that the perfection of art consists.

It is far better to give work that is above a person, than to educate the person to be above their work.

What is in reality cowardice and faithlessness, we call charity, and consider it the part of benevolence sometimes to forgive men's evil practice for the sake of their accurate faith, and sometimes to forgive their confessed heresy for the sake of their admirable practice.