No good work whatever can be perfect, and the demand for perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art.

You were made for enjoyment, and the world was filled with things which you will enjoy, unless you are too proud to be pleased with them, or too grasping to care for what you can not turn to other account than mere delight.

The finer the nature, the more flaws it will show through the clearness of it; and it is a law of this universe that the best things shall be seldomest seen in their best form.

The first duty of government is to see that people have food, fuel, and clothes. The second, that they have means of moral and intellectual education.

Labour without joy is base. Labour without sorrow is base. Sorrow without labour is base. Joy without labour is base.

True taste is forever growing, learning, reading, worshipping, laying its hand upon its mouth because it is astonished, casting its shoes from off its feet because it finds all ground holy.

The very cheapness of literature is making even wise people forget that if a book is worth reading, it is worth buying. No book is worth anything which is not worth much; nor is it serviceable, until it has been read, and re-read, and loved, and loved again; and marked, so that you can refer to the passages you want in it.