Physical force has no value, where there is nothing else. Snow in snow-banks, fire in volcanoes and solfataras is cheap. The luxury of ice is in tropical countries, and midsummer days. The luxury of fire is, to have a little on our hearth; and of electricity, not the volleys of the charged cloud, but the manageable stream on the battery-wires. So of spirit, or energy; the rests or remains of it in the civil and moral man, are worth all the cannibals in the Pacific.

The brevity of human life gives a melancholy to the profession of the architect.

Rings and jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself. Thou must bleed for me. Therefore the poet brings his poem; the shepherd, his lamb; the farmer, corn; the miner, a stone; the painter, his picture; the girl, a handkerchief of her own sewing.

Our books approach very slowly the things we most wish to know.

There is no good theory of disease which does not at once suggest a cure.

Pain is superficial, and therefore fear is. The torments of martyrdoms are probably most keenly felt by the by-standers.

In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows.