Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts - the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art.

All that we call ideal in Greek or any other art, because to us it is false and visionary, was, to the makers of it, true and existent.

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

It is in this power of saying everything, and yet saying nothing too plainly, that the perfection of art consists.

The art which we may call generally art of the wayside, as opposed to that which is the business of men's lives, is, in the best sense of the word, Grotesque.