The best things in life aren’t things.
They are good furniture pictures, unworthy of praise, and undeserving of blame.
Of all the things that oppress me, this sense of the evil working of nature herself -my disgust at her barbarity -clumsiness -darkness -bitter mockery of herself -is the most desolating.
Whether for life or death, do your own work well.
Government and cooperation are in all things the laws of life. Anarchy and competition, the laws of death.
The anger of a person who is strong, can always bide its time.
Nearly all the evils in the Church have arisen from bishops desiring power more than light. They want authority, not outlook.
The imagination is never governed, it is always the ruling and divine power.
Spiritual power begins by directing animal power to other than egoistic ends.
We may live without her, and worship without her, but we cannot remember without her. How cold is all history, how lifeless all imagery, compared to that which the living nation writes, and the uncorrupted marble bears!
I have seen, and heard, much of Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.
If a great thing can be done, it can be done easily, but this ease is like the of ease of a tree blossoming after long years of gathering strength.
You were made for enjoyment, and the world was filled with things which you will enjoy, unless you are too proud to be pleased with them, or too grasping to care for what you can not turn to other account than mere delight.
Life is a magic vase filled to the brim, so made that you cannot dip from it nor draw from it; but it overflows into the hand that drops treasures into it. Drop in malice and it overflows hate; drop in charity and it overflows love.
Without the perfect sympathy with the animals around them, no gentleman’s education, no Christian education, could be of any possible use.
Nature is always mysterious and secret in her use of means; and art is always likest her when it is most inexplicable.
At every moment of our lives we should be trying to find out, not in what we differ with other people, but in what we agree with them.
It is advisable that a person know at least three things, where they are, where they are going, and what they had best do under the circumstances.
Do not think it wasted time to submit yourself to any influence that will bring upon you any noble feeling.
Much of the character of everyman may be read in his house.