If I were to choose among all gifts and qualities that which, on the whole, makes life pleasantest, I should select the love of children. No circumstance can render this world wholly a solitude to one who has this possession

Do not waste a minute - not a second - in trying to demonstrate to others the merits of your performance. If your work does not vindicate itself, you cannot vindicate it.

The bee himself did not evade the schoolboy more than she evaded me, and even at this day I still stand somewhat bewildered, like the boy.

What are Raphael's Madonnas but the shadow of a mother's love, fixed in permanent outline forever?

That genius is feeble which cannot hold its own before the masterpieces of the world.

Character shows itself apart from genius as a special thing. The first point of measurement of any man is that of quality.

How many lessons of faith and beauty we should lose, if there were no winter in our year!