If some people really see angels where others see only empty space, let them paint the angels: only let not anybody else think they can paint an angel too, on any calculated principles of the angelic.
All great song, from the first day when human lips contrived syllables, has been sincere song.
Repose demands for its expression the implied capability of its opposite, – energy.
All traveling becomes dull in exact proportion to its rapidity.
The highest thoughts are those which are least dependent on language, and the dignity of any composition and praise to which it is entitled are in exact proportion to its dependency of language or expression.
The relative majesty of buildings depends more on the weight and vigour of their masses than any other tribute of their design.
The man who accepts the laissez-faire doctrine would allow his garden to grow wild so that roses might fight it out with the weeds and the fittest might survive.
Better a child should be ignorant of a thousand truths than have consecrated in its heart a single lie.
A nation which lives a pastoral and innocent life never decorates the shepherd’s staff or the plough-handle; but races who live by depredation and slaughter nearly always bestow exquisite ornaments on the quiver, the helmet, and the spear.
Greatness is not a teachable nor gainable thing, but the expression of the mind of a God-made great man.
You may sell your work, but not your soul.
Nothing can be true which is either complete or vacant; every touch is false which does not suggest more than it represents, and every space is false which represents nothing.
The man who says to one, go, and he goeth, and to another, come, and he cometh, has, in most cases, more sense of restraint and difficulty than the man who obeys him.
The time is probably near when a new system of architectural laws will be developed, adapted entirely to metallic construction.
If you want knowledge, you must toil for it; if food, you must toil for it; and if pleasure, you must toil for it: toil is the law.
Greatness is the aggregation of minuteness; nor can its sublimity be felt truthfully by any mind unaccustomed to the affectionate watching of what is least.
The wisest men are wise to the full in death.
That which seems to be wealth may in verity be only the gilded index of far reaching ruin.
He only is advancing in life whose heart is getting softer, whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is entering into living peace. And the men who have this life in them are the true lords or kings of the earth they, and they only.
Value is the life-giving power of anything; cost, the quantity of labour required to produce it; its price, the quantity of labourwhich its possessor will take in exchange for it.