“The practice always reminds me of a man seeing a beautiful view, and not thinking how beautiful it is half so much as what he shall say about it.”

Criticising commentary that distracts attention from the beauty of the thing itself · Letter to John Forster, 22 April 1848

• Art
• Beauty

“Surely, then, the gardener who produces shapes and objects so lovely and so comforting, should have some hold upon the world’s remembrance when he himself becomes in need of comfort.”

Arguing that those who create beauty deserve care in their own need · Speech, London, 14 June 1852

• Beauty
• Memory
• Nature

“I was not so old as you are now when I first had to win my food, and do this out of this determination, and I have never slackened in it since.”

Looking back on the discipline that shaped his working life · Letter to Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens, 1868

• Hope
• Memory