A book worth reading is worth buying.
He is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the sum of his works, the greatest number of the greatest ideas.
A great thing can only be done by a great person; and they do it without effort.
The essence of lying is in deception, not in words.
The first duty of a state is to see that every child born therein shall be well housed, clothed, fed and educated till it attains years of discretion.
It is in this power of saying everything, and yet saying nothing too plainly, that the perfection of art consists.
Large fortunes are all founded either on the occupation of land, or lending or the taxation of labor.
Nothing is ever done beautifully which is done in rivalship: or nobly, which is done in pride.
In general, pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes.
Life being very short, and the quiet hours of it few, we ought to waste none of them in reading valueless books.
Men were not intended to work with the accuracy of tools, to be precise and perfect in all their actions.
The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world... to see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion all in one.
There is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.
To give alms is nothing unless you give thought also.
I believe the first test of a truly great man is in his humility.
The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most.
All great and beautiful work has come of first gazing without shrinking into the darkness.
You might sooner get lightning out of incense smoke than true action or passion out of your modern English religion.
Nothing can be beautiful which is not true.
Taste is the only morality. Tell me what you like and I'll tell you what you are.
The first condition of education is being able to put someone to wholesome and meaningful work.
Some slaves are scoured to their work by whips, others by their restlessness and ambition.
Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort.
The first duty of government is to see that people have food, fuel, and clothes. The second, that they have means of moral and intellectual education.
Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you.
No person who is well bred, kind and modest is ever offensively plain; all real deformity means want for manners or of heart.
To know anything well involves a profound sensation of ignorance.
It is impossible, as impossible as to raise the dead, to restore anything that has ever been great or beautiful in architecture. That which I have insisted upon as the life of the whole, that spirit which is given only by the hand and eye of the workman, can never be recalled.
The higher a man stands, the more the word vulgar becomes unintelligible to him.
