Greater completion marks the progress of art, absolute completion usually its decline.

The principle of all successful effort is to try to do not what is absolutely the best, but what is easily within our power, and suited for our temperament and condition.

Depend upon it, the first universal characteristic of all great art is Tenderness, as the second is Truth.

Contrast increases the splendor of beauty, but it disturbs its influence; it adds to its attractiveness, but diminishes its power.

Depend upon it, the first universal characteristic of all great art is Tenderness, as the second is Truth. I find this more and more every day: an infinitude of tenderness is the chief gift and inheritance of all the truly great men. It is sure to involve a relative intensity of disdain towards base things, and an appearance of sternness and arrogance in the eyes of all hard, stupid, and vulgar people

Come, ye cold winds, at January's call, On whistling wings, and with white flakes bestrew The earth.

Not only is there but one way of doing things rightly, but there is only one way of seeing them, and that is, seeing the whole of them.