“I have also a notion that any number of bundles of the driest legal chaff that ever was chopped would be cheaply expended for one really meritorious engraving.”

Humorously asserting the enduring public worth of visual art · Speech, Artists' Benevolent Fund, London, 8 May 1858

• Art
• Humour

“Attention, after due term of submissive service, always will.”

Contrasting trainable attention with gifts that cannot simply be commanded · Speech, Birmingham and Midland Institute, 27 September 1869

• Art
• Truth

“If there ever was a time when any one class could of itself do much for its own good, and for the welfare of society—which I greatly doubt—that time is unquestionably past.”

Arguing that social improvement requires cooperation across groups · Speech, Birmingham, 30 December 1853

• Hope
• Truth