Every revolution was first a thought in one man's mind; and when the same thought occurs to another man, it is the key to that era.

The best bribe which London offers to-day to the imagination, is, that, in such a vast variety of people and conditions, one can believe there is room for persons of romantic character to exist, and that the poet, the mystic, and the hero may hope to confront their counterparts.

People forget that it is the eye which makes the horizon, and the rounding mind's eye which makes this or that man a type or representative of humanity with the name of hero or saint.

Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art.

The passages of Shakespeare that we most prize were never quoted until within this century.

In youth, we clothe ourselves with rainbows, with hope & love, & go as brave as the zodiack. In age we put out another sort of perspiration; gout, fever, rheumatism, caprice, doubt, fretting, and avarice.

Perpetual modernism is the measure of merit in every work of art.