It's a luxury to be understood.

If I could put my hand on the north star, would it be as beautiful? The sea is lovely, but when we bathe in it the beauty forsakesall the near water. For the imagination and senses cannot be gratified at the same time.

Let us, if we must have great actions, make our own so. All action is of infinite elasticity, and the least admits of being inflated with celestial air, until it eclipses the sun and moon.

Art is evidence of our most creative moment.

It never was in the power of any man or any community to call the arts into being. They come to serve his actual wants, never to please his fancy.

The cruelest foe is a masked benefactor. The wars which make history so dreary have served the cause of truth and virtue.

History is full, down to this day, of the imbecility of kings and governors. They are a class of persons much to be pitied, for they know not what they should do.