 It is far more difficult to be simple than to be complicated; far more difficult to sacrifice skill and easy execution in the proper place, than to expand both indiscriminately. |
| To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion all in one. |
| Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness. |
| Civilization is the making of civil persons. |
| Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort. |
| A thing is worth what it can do for you, not what you choose to pay for it. |
| 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? |
| Imaginary evils soon become real one by indulging our reflections on them. |
| We require from buildings two kinds of goodness: first, the doing their practical duty well: then that they be graceful and pleasing in doing it. |
| That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings. |
| The child who desires education will be bettered by it; the child who dislikes it disgraced. |
| No art can be noble which is incapable of expressing thought, and no art is capable of expressing thought which does not change. |
| Natural abilities can almost compensate for the want of every kind of cultivation, but no cultivation of the mind can make up for the want of natural abilities. |
| When a man is wrapped up in himself, he makes a pretty small package. |
| The principle of all successful effort is to try to do not what is absolutely the best, but what is easily within our power, and suited for our temperament and condition. |
| Tell me what you like and I'll tell you what you are. |
| It is in this power of saying everything, and yet saying nothing too plainly, that the perfection of art consists. |
| Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you. |
| Endurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty. |
| What do we, as a nation, care about books? How much do you think we spend altogether on our libraries, public or private, as compared with what we spend on our horses? |
