A beautiful woman is a picture which drives all beholders nobly mad.

Flowers... are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world.

The hand that rounded Peter's dome, And groined the aisles of Christian Rome, Wrought in a sad sincerity; Himself from God he could not free; He builded better than he knew: The conscious stone to beauty grew.

If any mention was made of homicide, madness, adultery, and intolerable tortures, we would let the church-bells ring louder, the church-organ swell its peal and drown the hideous sound. The sugar they raised was excellent: nobody tasted blood in it.

The life of man is a self-evolving circle, which, from a ring imperceptibly small, rushes on all sides outwards to new and largercircles, and that without end.

Nature is a rag merchant, who works up every shred and ort and end into new creations.

The day is always his, who works in it with serenity and great aims.