In sculpture did ever anybody call the Apollo a fancy piece? Or say of the Laocoon how it might be made different? A masterpiece of art has in the mind a fixed place in the chain of being, as much as a plant or a crystal.

When nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.

We are rich only through what we give, and poor only through what we refuse.

The measure of action is the sentiment from which it proceeds. The greatest action may easily be one of the most private circumstance.

Every vice is only an exaggeration of a necessary and virtuous function.

Science does not know its debt to imagination.

It is not length of life, but depth of life.