Cowardice shuts the eyes till the sky is not larger than a calf-skin: shuts the eyes so that we cannot see the horse that is running away with us; worse, shuts the eyes of the mind and chills the heart.

One of our statesmen said, "The curse of this country is eloquent men."

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 effects of opposition are wonderful. There are men who rise refreshed on hearing of a threat, men to whom a crisis, which intimidates and paralyzes the majority, comes as graceful and beloved as a bride!

Our poets are men of talents who sing, and not the children of music.

In our fine arts, not imitation, but creation is the aim... The details, the prose of nature, he should omit, and give us only the spirit and splendour.

Children and savages use only nouns or names of things, which they convert into verbs, and apply to analogous mental acts.