The poet, the painter, the sculptor, the musican, the architect, seek each to concentrate this radiance of the world on one point, and each in his several work to satisfy the love of beauty which stimulates him to produce.

Rings and other jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself.

Life is a perpetual instruction in cause and effect.

In Haydn's oratorios, the notes present to the imagination not only motions, as, of the snake, the stag, and the elephant, but colors also; as the green grass.

The genius of the Platonists, is intoxicating to the student, yet how few particulars of it can I detach from all their books.

How much we forgive to those who yield us the rare spectacle of heroic manners! We will pardon them the want of books, or arts, and even of gentler virtues. How tenaciously we remember them!

People do not deserve to have good writing, they are so pleased with bad.