"I have not written in vain if I have heretofore done anything towards diminishing the reputation of the Renaissance landscape painting."

"Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort."

"Reading and writing are not education if they do not help people to be kind to all creatures."

"To give alms is nothing unless you give thought also."

"Shadows are in reality when the sun is shining the most conspicuous thing in a landscape next to the highest lights."

"The work of science is to substitute facts for appearances, and demonstrations for impressions."

"To be taught to read-what is the use of that, if you know not whether what you read is false or true? To be taught to write or to speak-but what is the use of speaking, if you have nothing to say? To be taught to think-nay, what is the use of being able to think, if you have nothing to think of? But to be taught to see is to gain word and thought at once, and both true."

"A book worth reading is worth buying."

"Every great person is always being helped by everybody; for their gift is to get good out of all things and all persons."

"I believe the right question to ask, respecting all ornament, is simply this; was it done with enjoyment, was the carver happy while he was about it?"

"The essence of lying is in deception, not in words."

"That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings."

"It is written on the arched sky; it looks out from every star. It is the poetry of Nature; it is that which uplifts the spirit within us."

"To be content in utter darkness and ignorance is indeed unmanly, and therefore we think that to love light and find knowledge must always be right. Yet wherever pride has any share in the work, even knowledge and light may be ill pursued. Knowledge is good, and light is good: yet man perished in seeking knowledge, and moths perish in seeking light; and if we, who are crushed before the moth, will not accept such mystery as is needful to us, we shall perish in like manner."

"You may either win your peace or buy it: win it, by resistance to evil; buy it, by compromise with evil."

"When I have been unhappy I have heard an opera ... and it seemed the shrieking of winds when I am happy a sparrow's chirp is delicious to me. But it is not the chirp that makes me happy but I that make it sweet."

"No human face is exactly the same in its lines on each side, no leaf perfect in its lobes, no branch in its symmetry. All admit irregularity as they imply change; and to banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality. All things are literally better, lovelier, and more beloved for the imperfections which have been divinely appointed, that the law of human life may be Effort, and the law of human judgment, Mercy."

"The distinguishing sign of slavery is to have a price, and to be bought for it."

"Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you."

"Punishment is the last and the least effective instrument in the hands of the legislator for the prevention of crime."

"Taste is the only morality. Tell me what you like and I'll tell you what you are."

"Men cannot not live by exchanging articles, but producing them. They live by work not trade."

"There are no such things as Flowers there are only gladdened Leaves."

"The greatest efforts of the race have always been traceable to the love of praise as the greatest catastrophes to the love of pleasure."

"Modern traveling is not traveling at all; it is merely being sent to a place, and very little different from becoming a parcel."

"He that would be angry and sin not, must not be angry with anything but sin."

"There is never vulgarity in a whole truth, however commonplace. It may be unimportant or painful. It cannot be vulgar. Vulgarity is only in concealment of truth, or in affectation."

"Cursing is invoking the assistance of a spirit to help you inflict suffering. Swearing on the other hand, is invoking, only the witness of a spirit to an statement you wish to make."

"The art which we may call generally art of the wayside, as opposed to that which is the business of men's lives, is, in the best sense of the word, Grotesque."

"There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey."

"There is no wealth but life."

"It seems a fantastic paradox, but it is nevertheless a most important truth, that no architecture can be truly noble which is not imperfect."

"The weakest among us has a gift however seemingly trivial which is peculiar to him and which worthily used will be a gift also to his race."

"Life being very short, and the quiet hours of it few, we ought to waste none of them in reading valueless books."

"Education does not mean teaching people what they do not know. It means teaching them to behave as they do not behave."

"For, truly, the man who does not know when to die, does not know how to live."

"Dream lofty dreams and as you dream so shall you become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall at last unveil."

"It does not much matter that an individual loses two or three hundred pounds in buying a bad picture, but it is to be regretted that a nation should lose two or three hundred thousand in raising a ridiculous building."

"I believe that the first test of a great man is his humility. I don't mean by humility, doubt of his power. But really great men have a curious feeling that the greatness is not of them, but through them. And they see something divine in every other man and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful."

"Music when healthy, is the teacher of perfect order, and when depraved, the teacher of perfect disorder."

"Modern education has devoted itself to the teaching of impudence, and then we complain that we can no longer control our mobs."

"Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together."

"Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness."

"How long most people would look at the best book before they would give the price of a large turbot for it?"

"You might sooner get lightning out of incense smoke than true action or passion out of your modern English religion."

"When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece."

"Art is not a study of positive reality, it is the seeking for ideal truth."

"I believe the first test of a truly great man is in his humility."

"There is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather."

"It is evident that the chief feeling induced by woody country is one of reverence for its antiquity. There is a quiet melancholy about the decay of the patriarchal trunks, which is enhanced by the green and elastic vigor of the young saplings; the noble form of the forest aisles, and the subdued light which penetrates their entangled boughs, combine to add to the impression; and the whole character of the scene is calculated to excite conservative feeling. The man who could remain a radical in a wood country is a disgrace to his species."