The true artist is known by what he annexes, and he annexes everything.

Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.

Genius learns from nature, its own nature. Talent learns from art.

Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realized by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it, so, in the present state of things in England, the people who do most harm are the people who try to do most good.

The only thing that the artist cannot see is the obvious. The only thing that the public can see is the obvious.

Nothing looks so like innocence as an indiscretion.

There is no country in the world where machinery is so lovely as in America. It was not until I had seen the water-works at Chicago that I realised the wonders of machinery; the rise and fall of the steel rods, the symmetrical motion of the great wheels is the most beautiful rhythmic thing I have ever seen.