«I this day was spectator of the most magnificent Triumph that certainly ever floted on the Thames, considering the innumerable number of boates & Vessels, dressd and adornd with all imaginabe Pomp: but, above all, the Thrones, Arches, Pageants & other representations, stately barges of the Lord Major, & Companies, with varius Inventions, musique, & Peales of Ordnance from both the vessels & shore, going to meet & Conduct the new Queene from Hampton Court to White-hall, at the first time of her Coming to Towne, exceeding in my opinion, all the Venetian Bucentoro?s &c on the Ascention, when they go to Espouse the Adriatic: his Majestie & the Queene, came in an antique-shaped open Vessell, covered with a State or Canopy of Cloth of Gold, made in forme of a Cupola, supported with high Corinthian Pillars, wreathed with flowers, festoones & Gyrlands: I was in our new-built Vessell, sailing amongst them»

«Swirls of antique stained glass, blazes of brass, forests of carved wood and waterfalls of crystal combine to make up the city's most fabulously festive interior.»

«Among the virtues and vices that make up the British character, we have one vice, at least, that Americans ought to view with sympathy. For they appear to be the only people who share it with us. I mean our worship of the antique. I do not refer to beauty or even historical association. I refer to age, to a quantity of years.»

«A great city, whose image dwells in the memory of man, is the type of some great idea. Rome represents conquest; Faith hovers over the towers of Jerusalem; and Athens embodies the pre-eminent quality of the antique world, Art.»

«LAOCOON, n. A famous piece of antique scripture representing a priest of that name and his two sons in the folds of two enormous serpents. The skill and diligence with which the old man and lads support the serpents and keep them up to their work have been justly regarded as one of the noblest artistic illustrations of the mastery of human intelligence over brute inertia.»

«GEOLOGY, n. The science of the earth's crust --to which, doubtless, will be added that of its interior whenever a man shall come up garrulous out of a well. The geological formations of the globe already noted are catalogued thus: The Primary, or lower one, consists of rocks, bones or mired mules, gas-pipes, miners' tools, antique statues minus the nose, Spanish doubloons and ancestors. The Secondary is largely made up of red worms and moles. The Tertiary comprises railway tracks, patent pavements, grass, snakes, mouldy boots, beer bottles, tomato cans, intoxicated citizens, garbage, anarchists, snap-dogs and fools.»

«You have friends, Paullus, just like your pictures and vases, all antique originals»

«Give me insight into today and you may have the antique and future worlds.»

«O good old man, how well in thee appears The constant service of the antique world, When service sweat for duty, not for meed! Thou art not for the fashion of these times, When none will sweat but for promotion»