'Tis a short sight to limit our faith in laws to those of gravity, of chemistry, of botany, and so forth. Those laws do not stop where our eyes lose them, but push the same geometry and chemistry up into the invisible plane of social and rational life, so that, look where we will, in a boy's game, or in the strifes of races, a perfect reaction, a perpetual judgment keeps watch and ward.

Nature hates monopolies and exceptions.

Imagination is not a talent of some men but is the health of every man.

Behind us, as we go, all things assume pleasing forms, as clouds do far off. Not only things familiar and stale, but even the tragic and terrible, are comely, as they take their place in the pictures of memory.

The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike.

There is no way to success in art but to take off your coat, grind paint, and work like a digger on the railroad, all day and every day.

The influence of fine scenery, the presence of mountains, appeases our irritations and elevates our friendships.