Government and co-operation are in all things the laws of life; anarchy and competition the laws of death.

There was a rocky valley between Buxton and Bakewell. . . . You enterprised a railroad . . . you blasted its rocks away. . . . And now, every fool in Buxton can be at Bakewell in half-an-hour, and every fool in Bakewell at Buxton.

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.

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

Taste . . . is the only morality. . . . Tell me what you like, and I’ll tell you what you are.

Life being very short, and the quiet hours of it few, we ought to waste none of them in reading valueless books.

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.

Let us reform our schools, and we shall find little reform needed in our prisons.

I believe the right question to ask, respecting all ornament, is simply this: Was it done with enjoyment—was the carver happy while he was about it?

Value is the life-giving power of anything; cost, the quantity of labor required to produce it; price, the quantity of labor which its possessor will take in exchange for it.