What forests of laurel we bring, and the tears of mankind, to those who stood firm against the opinion of their contemporaries!

The intellectual man requires a fine bait; the sots are easily amused. But everybody is drugged with his own frenzy, and the pageant marches at all hours, with music and banner and badge.

Perpetual modernness is the measure of merit, in every work of art; since the author of it was not misled by anything short- livedor local, but abode by real and abiding traits.

Light is the first of painters. There is no object so foul that intense light will not make it beautiful.

The tendencies of the times favor the idea of self-government, and leave the individual, for all code, to the rewards and penalties of his own constitution, which work with more energy than we believe, whilst we depend on artificial restraints.

The selfish man suffers more from his selfishness than he from whom that selfishness withholds some important benefit.

Eloquence is the power to translate a truth into language perfectly intelligible to the person to whom you speak.