What distinguishes a great artist from a weak one is first their sensibility and tenderness; second, their imagination, and third, their industry.

No art can be noble which is incapable of expressing thought, and no art is capable of expressing thought which does not change.

The sky is the part of creation in which nature has done for the sake of pleasing man.

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.

We have seen when the earth had to be prepared for the habitation of man, a veil, as it were, of intermediate being was spread between him and its darkness, in which were joined in a subdued measure, the stability and insensibility of the earth, and the passion and perishing of mankind.

It is not how much one makes but to what purpose one spends.

It does not matter what the whip is; it is none the less a whip, because you have cut thongs for it out of your own souls.

The child who desires education will be bettered by it; the child who dislikes it disgraced.

The first condition of education is being able to put someone to wholesome and meaningful work.

They are good furniture pictures, unworthy of praise, and undeserving of blame.