"You may either win your peace or buy it: win it, by resistance to evil; buy it, by compromise with evil"
"Whether for life or death, do your own work well"
"Whereas it has long been known and declared that the poor have no right to the property of the rich, I wish it also to be known and declared that the rich have no right to the property of the poor"
"When we build, let us think that we build for ever"
"When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece"
"When a man is wrapped up in himself, he makes a pretty small package"
"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?"
"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"
"Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you"
"To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion all in one"
"The sky is the part of creation in which nature has done for the sake of pleasing man"
"The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most"
"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"
"The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it"
"The higher a man stands, the more the word vulgar becomes unintelligible to him"
"The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world... to see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion all in one"
"The first test of a truly great man is his humility. By humility I don't mean doubt of his powers or hesitation in speaking his opinion, but merely an understanding of the relationship of what he can say and what he can do"
"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"
"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"
"The first condition of education is being able to put someone to wholesome and meaningful work"
"Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance"
"Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort"
"Punishment is the last and the least effective instrument in the hands of the legislator for the prevention of crime"
"One who does not know when to die, does not know how to live"
"Nothing is ever done beautifully which is done in rivalship: or nobly, which is done in pride"
"Nothing can be beautiful which is not true"
"Not only is there but one way of doing things rightly, but there is only one way of seeing them, and that is, seeing the whole of them"
"No person who is well bred, kind and modest is ever offensively plain; all real deformity means want for manners or of heart"
"No person who is not a great sculptor or painter can be an architect. If he is not a sculptor or painter, he can only be a builder"
"No lying knight or lying priest ever prospered in any age, but especially not in the dark ones. Men prospered then only in following an openly declared purpose, and preaching candidly beloved and trusted creeds"
"Men were not intended to work with the accuracy of tools, to be precise and perfect in all their actions"
"Men don't and can't live by exchanging articles, but by producing them. They don't live by trade, but by work. Give up that foolish and vain title of Trades Unions; and take that of laborers Unions"
"Men cannot not live by exchanging articles, but producing them. They live by work not trade"
"Man's only true happiness is to live in hope of something to be won by him. Reverence something to be worshipped by him, and love something to be cherished by him, forever"
"Life being very short, and the quiet hours of it few, we ought to waste none of them in reading valueless books"
"Let us reform our schools, and we shall find little reform needed in our prisons"
"Let every dawn be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close"
"Large fortunes are all founded either on the occupation of land, or lending or the taxation of labor"
"It seems a fantastic paradox, but it is nevertheless a most important truth, that no architecture can be truly noble which is not imperfect"
"It is written on the arched sky; it looks out from every star. It is the poetry of Nature; it is that which uplifts the spirit within us"
"I believe the first test of a truly great man is in his humility"
"How long most people would look at the best book before they would give the price of a large turbot for it?"
"He that would be angry and sin not, must not be angry with anything but sin"
