We owe to genius always the same debt, of lifting the curtain from the common, and showing us that divinities are sitting disguised in the seeming gang of gypsies and peddlars.

We may be partial, but Fate is not.

To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine.

Every thing admonishes us how needlessly long life is.

All ages of belief have been great; all of unbelief have been mean.

In our fine arts, not imitation, but creation is the aim... The details, the prose of nature, he should omit, and give us only the spirit and splendour.

I read the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which were original and not conventional. The soul always hears an admonition in such lines, let the subject be what it may. The sentiment they instil is of more value than any thought they may contain. To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, - that is genius.