What is indispensable to inspiration? ...sound sleep and the provocation of a good book or a companion.

though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.

In a virtuous action, I properly am; in a virtuous act, I add to the world; I plant into deserts conquered from Chaos and Nothing, and see the darkness receding on the limits of the horizon.

To the body and mind which have been cramped by noxious work or company, nature is medicinal and restores their tone.

Painting seems to be to the eye what dancing is to the limbs. When that has educated the frame to self-possession, to nimbleness,to grace, the steps of the dancing-master are better forgotten; so painting teaches me the splendor of color and the expression of form, and as I see many pictures and higher genius in the art, I see the boundless opulence of the pencil, the indifferency in which the artist stands free to choose out of the possible forms.

The true preacher can be known by this, that he deals out to the people his life,--life passed through the fire of thought.

Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same.