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All Real And Wholesome Enjoyments Possible To People Have Been Just As Possible To Them Since First They Were Made Of The Earth As They Are Now; And They Are Possible To Them Chiefly In Peace. To Watch The Corn Grow, And The Blossoms Set; To Draw Hard Breath Over Plowshare Or Spade; To Read, To Think, To Love, To Hope: These Are The Things That Make People Happy.

-John Ruskin

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All Real And Wholesome

John Ruskin

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All Real And Wholesome Enjoyments Possible To People Have Been Just As Possible To Them Since First They Were Made Of The Earth As They Are Now; And They Are Possible To Them Chiefly In Peace. To Watch The Corn Grow, And The Blossoms Set; To Draw Hard Breath Over Plowshare Or Spade; To Read, To Think, To Love, To Hope: These Are The Things That Make People Happy.

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A Man Is Known To His Dog By The Smell, To His Tailor By The Coat, To His Friend By The Smile; Each Of These Know Him, But How Little Or How Much Depends On The Dignity Of The Intelligence. That Which Is Truly And Indeed Characteristic Of The Man Is Known Only To God.

There Is No Process Of Amalgamation By Which Opinions, Wrong Individually, Can Become Right Merely By Their Multitude.

Mountains Are The Beginning And The End Of All Natural Scenery.

Our Respect For The Dead, When They Are Just Dead, Is Something Wonderful, And The Way We Show It More Wonderful Still. We Show It With Black Feathers And Black Horses; We Show It With Black Dresses And Black Heraldries; We Show It With Costly Obelisks And Sculptures Of Sorrow, Which Spoil Half Of Our Beautiful Cathedrals. We Show It With Frightful Gratings And Vaults, And Lids Of Dismal Stone, In The Midst Of The Quiet Grass; And Last, And Not Least, We Show It By Permitting Ourselves To Tell Any Number Of Falsehoods We Think Amiable Or Credible In The Epitaph.

The Only Absolutely And Unapproachably Heroic Element In The Soldier's Work Seems To Be-that He Is Paid Little For It-and Regularly.

It Is Perhaps The Principal Admirableness Of The Gothic Schools Of Architecture, That They Receive The Results Of The Labour Of Inferior Minds; And Out Of Fragments Full Of Imperfectionraise Up A Stately And Unaccusable Whole.

Architecture ... The Adaptation Of Form To Resist Force.

Anything Which Elevates The Mind Is Sublime. Greatness Of Matter, Space, Power, Virtue Or Beauty, Are All Sublime.

No One Can Do Me Any Good By Loving Me; I Have More Love Than I Need Or Could Do Any Good With; But People Do Me Good By Making Me Love Them - Which Isn't Easy.

It Is Not, Truly Speaking, The Labour That Is Divided; But The Men: Divided Into Mere Segments Of Men - Broken Into Small Fragments And Crumbs Of Life, So That All The Little Piece Of Intelligence That Is Left In A Man Is Not Enough To Make A Pin, Or A Nail, But Exhausts Itself In Making The Point Of A Pin Or The Head Of A Nail.

The First Duty Of Government Is To See That People Have Food, Fuel, And Clothes. The Second, That They Have Means Of Moral And Intellectual Education.

But If, Indeed, There Be A Nobler Life In Us Than In These Strangely Moving Atoms; If, Indeed, There Is An Eternal Difference Between The Fire Which Inhabits Them, And That Which Animates Us,--it Must Be Shown, By Each Of Us In His Appointed Place, Not Merely In The Patience, But In The Activity Of Our Hope, Not Merely By Our Desire, But Our Labor, For The Time When The Dust Of The Generations Of Men Shall Be Confirmed For Foundations Of The Gates Of The City Of God.

Every Duty We Omit Obscures Some Truth We Should Have Known.

Being Thus Prepared For Us In All Ways, And Made Beautiful, And Good For Food, And For Building, And For Instruments Of Our Hands, This Race Of Plants, Deserving Boundless Affection And Admiration From Us, Becomes, In Proportion To Their Obtaining It, A Nearly Perfect Test Of Our Being In Right Temper Of Mind And Way Of Life; So That No One Can Be Far Wrong In Either Who Loves Trees Enough, And Everyone Is Assuredly Wrong In Both Who Does Not Love Them, If His Life Has Brought Them In His Way.

It Is Far Better To Give Work That Is Above A Person, Than To Educate The Person To Be Above Their Work.

Bread Of Flour Is Good; But There Is Bread, Sweet As Honey, If We Would Eat It, In A Good Book.

It Is Better To Lose Your Pride With Someone You Love Rather Than To Lose That Someone You Love With Your Useless Pride.

Someone You Love

When I Have Been Unhappy, I Have Heard An Opera... And It Seemed The Shrieking Of Winds; When I Am Happy, A Sparrow's Chirp Is Delicious To Me. But It Is Not The Chirp That Makes Me Happy, But I That Make It Sweet.

Without Seeking, Truth Cannot Be Known At All. It Can Neither Be Declared From Pulpits, Nor Set Down In Articles, Nor In Any Wise Prepared And Sold In Packages Ready For Use. Truth Must Be Ground For Every Man By Itself Out Of It Such, With Such Help As He Can Get, Indeed, But Not Without Stern Labor Of His Own.

It Is Far More Difficult To Be Simple Than To Be Complicated; Far More Difficult To Sacrifice Skill And Easy Execution In The Proper Place, Than To Expand Both Indiscriminately.

Shadows Are In Reality, When The Sun Is Shining, The Most Conspicuous Thing In A Landscape, Next To The Highest Lights.

You Might Sooner Get Lightning Out Of Incense Smoke Than True Action Or Passion Out Of Your Modern English Religion.

He Who Has Truth At His Heart Need Never Fear The Want Of Persuasion On His Tongue.

It Is Better To Be Nobly Remembered Than Nobly Born.

The Enormous Influence Of Novelty--the Way In Which It Quickens Observations, Sharpens Sensations, And Exalts Sentiment--is Not Half Enough Taken Note Of By Us, And Is To Me A Very Sorrowful Matter. And Yet, If We Try To Obtain Perpetual Change, Change Itself Will Become Monotonous.

Temperance, In The Nobler Sense, Does Not Mean A Subdued And Imperfect Energy; It Does Not Mean A Stopping Short In Any Good Thing, As In Love And In Faith; But It Means The Power Which Governs The Most Intense Energy, And Prevents Its Acting In Way But As It Ought.

The Highest Thoughts Are Those Which Are Least Dependent On Language, And The Dignity Of Any Composition And Praise To Which It Is Entitled Are In Exact Proportion To Its Dependency Of Language Or Expression.

In General, Pride Is At The Bottom Of All Great Mistakes.

The Great Cry That Rises From Our Manufacturing Cities, Louder Than Their Furnace Blast, Is All In Very Deed For This, That We Manufacture Everything There Except Men; We Blanch Cotton, And Strengthen Steel, And Refine Sugar, And Shape Pottery; But To Brighten, To Strengthen, To Refine, Or To Form A Single Living Spirit, Never Enters Into Our Estimate Of Advantages.

That Admiration Of The 'neat But Not Gaudy,' Which Is Commonly Reported To Have Influenced The Devil When He Painted His Tail Pea Green.

The Highest Reward For A Person's Toil Is Not What They Get For It, But What They Become By It.

When We Build ... Let It Not Be For Present Delights Nor For Present Use Alone. Let It Be Such Work As Our Descendants Will Thank Us For, And Let Us Think ... That A Time Is To Come When These Stones Will Be Held Sacred Because Our Hands Have Touched Them, And That Men Will Say As They Look Upon The Labor, And The Wrought Substance Of Them, See! This Our Fathers Did For Us!

As Long As There Are Cold And Nakedness In The Land Around You, So Long Can There Be No Question At All But That Splendor Of Dress Is A Crime. In Due Time, When We Have Nothing Better To Set People To Work At, It May Be Right To Let Them Make Lace And Cut Jewels; But As Long As There Are Any Who Have No Blankets For Their Beds, And No Rags For Their Bodies, So Long It Is Blanket-making And Tailoring We Must Set People To Work At, Not Lace.

It Is Not How Much One Makes But To What Purpose One Spends.

Hundreds Of People Can Talk For One Who Can Think.

To Cultivate Sympathy You Must Be Among Living Creatures, And Thinking About Them; And To Cultivate Admiration, You Must Be Among Beautiful Things And Looking At Them.

Your Labor Only May Be Sold, Your Soul Must Not.

It Is Eminently A Weariable Faculty, Eminently Delicate, And Incapable Of Bearing Fatigue; So That If We Give It Too Many Objects At A Time To Employ Itself Upon, Or Very Grand Ones For A Long Time Together, It Fails Under The Effort, Becomes Jaded, Exactly As The Limbs Do By Bodily Fatigue, And Incapable Of Answering Any Farther Appeal Till It Has Had Rest.

The Work Of Science Is To Substitute Facts For Appearances, And Demonstrations For Impressions.

And Thus, In Full, There Are Four Classes: The Men Who Feel Nothing, And Therefore See Truly; The Men Who Feel Strongly, Think Weakly, And See Untruly (second Order Of Poets); The Men Who Feel Strongly, Think Strongly, And See Truly (first Order Of Poets); And The Men Who, Strong As Human Creatures Can Be, Are Yet Submitted To Influences Stronger Than They, And See In A Sort Untruly, Because What They See Is Inconceivably Above Them. This Last Is The Usual Condition Of Prophetic Inspiration.

The More Readily We Admit The Possibility Of Our Own Cherished Convictions Being Mixed With Error, The More Vital And Helpful Whatever Is Right In Them Will Become; And No Error Is So Conclusively Fatal As The Idea That God Will Not Allow Us To Err, Though He Has Allowed All Other Men To Do So.

Kind Hearts Are The Garden, Kind Thoughts Are The Roots, Kind Words Are The Blossoms, Kind Deeds Are The Fruit.

I Have Seen, And Heard, Much Of Cockney Impudence Before Now; But Never Expected To Hear A Coxcomb Ask Two Hundred Guineas For Flinging A Pot Of Paint In The Public's Face.

The Principle Of All Successful Effort Is To Try To Do Not What Is Absolutely The Best, But What Is Easily Within Our Power, And Suited For Our Temperament And Condition.

The Man Who Says To One, Go, And He Goeth, And To Another, Come, And He Cometh, Has, In Most Cases, More Sense Of Restraint And Difficulty Than The Man Who Obeys Him.

In My House There Is No Attempt Whatever To Secure Harmonies Of Colour, Or Form, Or Furniture.... I Am Entirely Independent For Daily Happiness Upon The Sensual Qualities Of Form Or Colour-when I Want Them I Take Them Either From The Sky Or From The Fields.

There Is Never Vulgarity In A Whole Truth, However Commonplace. It May Be Unimportant Or Painful. It Cannot Be Vulgar. Vulgarity Is Only In Concealment Of Truth, Or In Affectation.

No Good Is Ever Done To Society By The Pictorial Representation Of Its Diseases.

There Is No Music In A “rest” That I Know Of, But There's The Making Of Music In It. And People Are Always Missing That Part Of The Life Melody.

It Is His Restraint That Is Honorable To A Person, Not Their Liberty.

I've Seen The Rhine With Younger Wave, O'er Every Obstacle To Rave. I See The Rhine In His Native Wild Is Still A Mighty Mountain Child.

The Finer The Nature, The More Flaws It Will Show Through The Clearness Of It; And It Is A Law Of This Universe That The Best Things Shall Be Seldomest Seen In Their Best Form.

The Whole Difference Between A Man Of Genius And Other Men, It Has Been Said A Thousand Times, And Most Truly, Is That The First Remains In Great Part A Child, Seeing With The Large Eyes Of Children, In Perpetual Wonder, Not Conscious Of Much Knowledge--conscious, Rather Of Infinite Ignorance, And Yet Infinite Power; A Fountain Of Eternal Admiration, Delight, And Creative Force Within Him Meeting The Ocean Of Visible And Governable Things Around Him.

Man's Only True Happiness Is To Live In Hope Of Something To Be Won By Him. Reverence Something To Be Worshipped By Him, And Love Something To Be Cherished By Him, Forever.

That Country Is The Richest Which Nourishes The Greatest Number Of Noble And Happy Human Beings.

A Nation Which Lives A Pastoral And Innocent Life Never Decorates The Shepherd's Staff Or The Plough-handle; But Races Who Live By Depredation And Slaughter Nearly Always Bestow Exquisite Ornaments On The Quiver, The Helmet, And The Spear.

Every Increased Possession Loads Us With A New Weariness.

Nothing Can Be True Which Is Either Complete Or Vacant; Every Touch Is False Which Does Not Suggest More Than It Represents, And Every Space Is False Which Represents Nothing.

Without The Perfect Sympathy With The Animals Around Them, No Gentleman's Education, No Christian Education, Could Be Of Any Possible Use.

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.

There Is No Wealth But Life.

He Only Is Advancing In Life Whose Heart Is Getting Softer, Whose Blood Warmer, Whose Brain Quicker, Whose Spirit Is Entering Into Living Peace. And The Men Who Have This Life In Them Are The True Lords Or Kings Of The Earth They, And They Only.

The Distinguishing Sign Of Slavery Is To Have A Price, And To Be Bought For It.

In Mortals There Is A Care For Trifles Which Proceeds From Love And Conscience, And Is Most Holy; And A Care For Trifles Which Comes Of Idleness And Frivolity, And Is Most Base. And So, Also, There Is A Gravity Proceeding From Thought, Which Is Most Noble; And A Gravity Proceeding From Dulness And Mere Incapability Of Enjoyment, Which Is Most Base.

If You Want To Work For The Kingdom Of God, And To Bring It, And Enter Into It, There Is Just One Condition To Be First Accepted. You Must Enter Into It As Children, Or Not At All.

The Beginning And Almost The End Of All Good Law Is That Everyone Shall Work For Their Bread And Receive Good Bread For Their Work.

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?

No False Knight Or Lying Priest Ever Prospered, I Believe, In Any Age, But Certainly Not In The Dark Ones. Men Prospered Then, Only In Following Openly-declared Purposes , And Preaching Candidly Beloved And Trusted Creeds.

Imperfection Is In Some Sort Essential To All That We Know In Life.

Perfection And Imperfection

There Is Material Enough In A Single Flower For The Ornament Of A Score Of Cathedrals.

I Would Rather Teach Drawing That My Pupils May Learn To Love Nature, Than Teach The Looking At Nature That They May Learn To Draw.

That Which Seems To Be Wealth May In Verity Be Only The Gilded Index Of Far Reaching Ruin

Science Deals Exclusively With Things As They Are In Themselves.

You May Assuredly Find Perfect Peace, If You Are Resolved To Do That Which Your Lord Has Plainly Required--and Content That He Should Indeed Require No More Of You--than To Do Justice, To Love Mercy, And To Walk Humbly With Him.

Whenever I Did Anything Wrong, Stupid Or Hard-hearted, And I Have Done Many Things That Were All Three, My Mother Always Said "it Is Because You Were Too Much Indulged."

The Entire Vitality Of Art Depends Upon Its Being Either Full Of Truth, Or Full Of Use; And That, However Pleasant, Wonderful, Or Impressive It May Be In Itself, It Must Yet Be Of Inferior Kind, And Tend To Deeper Inferiority, Unless It Has Clearly One Of These Main Objects, Either To State A True Thing, Or To Adorn A Serviceable One.

What Is In Reality Cowardice And Faithlessness, We Call Charity, And Consider It The Part Of Benevolence Sometimes To Forgive Men's Evil Practice For The Sake Of Their Accurate Faith, And Sometimes To Forgive Their Confessed Heresy For The Sake Of Their Admirable Practice.

The Child Who Desires Education Will Be Bettered By It; The Child Who Dislikes It Disgraced.

Likes And Dislikes

Absolute Ugliness Is Admitted As Rarely As Perfect Beauty; But Degrees Of It More Or Less Distinct Are Associated With Whatever Has The Nature Of Death And Sin, Just As Beauty Is Associated With What Has The Nature Of Virtue And Of Life.

Why Is One Man Richer Than Another? Because He Is More Industrious, More Persevering And More Sagacious.

I Know Few Christians So Convinced Of The Splendor Of The Rooms In Their Father's House, As To Be Happier When Their Friends Are Called To Those Mansions... Nor Has The Church's Ardent "desire To Depart, And Be With Christ," Ever Cured It Of The Singular Habit Of Putting On Mourning For Every Person Summoned To Such Departure.

The Greatest Glory Of A Building Is Not In Its Stones, Nor In Its Gold. Its Glory Is In Its Age, And In That Deep Sense Of Voicefulness, Of Stern Watching, Of Mysterious Sympathy... Which We Feel In Walls That Have Long Been Washed By The Passing Waves Of Humanity.

People Are Always Expecting To Get Peace In Heaven: But You Know Whatever Peace They Get There Will Be Ready-made. Whatever Making Of Peace They Can Be Blest For, Must Be On The Earth Here.

There Is Nothing That This Age, From Whatever Standpoint We Survey It, Needs More, Physically, Intellectually, And Morally, Than Thorough Ventilation.

Drawing Is A Means Of Obtaining And Communicating Knowledge

We May, Without Offending Any Laws Of Good Taste, Require Of An Architect, As We Do Of A Novelist, That He Should Be Not Only Correct, But Entertaining.

Your Honesty Is Not To Be Based Either On Religion Or Policy.bothyourreligionand Policy Must Be Basedon It.

The Higher A Man Stands, The More The Word Vulgar Becomes Unintelligible To Him.

God Is A Kind Father. He Sets Us All In The Places Where He Wishes Us To Be Employed. He Chooses Work For Every Creature Which Will Be Delightful To Them If They Do It Simply And Humbly. He Gives Us Always Strength Enough And Sense Enough For What He Wants Us To Do.

No Nation Can Last Which Has Made A Mob Of Itself, However Generous At Heart.

An Artist Should Be Well Read In The Best Books, And Thoroughly High Bred, Both In Heart And Bearing. In A Word, He Should Be Fit For The Best Society, And Should Keef Out Of It.

We May Live Without Her, And Worship Without Her, But We Cannot Remember Without Her. How Cold Is All History, How Lifeless All Imagery, Compared To That Which The Living Nation Writes, And The Uncorrupted Marble Bears!

When Love And Skill Work Together, Expect A Masterpiece.

Contrast Increases The Splendor Of Beauty, But It Disturbs Its Influence; It Adds To Its Attractiveness, But Diminishes Its Power.

The Actual Flower Is The Plant's Highest Fulfilment, And Are Not Here Exclusively For Herbaria, County Floras And Plant Geography: They Are Here First Of All For Delight.

The Proof Of A Thing's Being Right Is That It Has Power Over The Heart; That It Excites Us, Wins Us, Or Helps Us.

God Gives Us Always Strength Enough, And Sense Enough, For What He Wants Us To Do; If We Either Tire Ourselves Or Puzzle Ourselves, It Is Our Own Fault.

The Bible Is The One Book To Which Any Thoughtful Man May Go With Any Honest Question Of Life Or Destiny And Find The Answer Of God By Honest Searching.

Whatever Merit There Is In Anything That I Have Written Is Simply Due To The Fact That When I Was A Child My Mother Daily Read Me A Part Of The Bible And Daily Made Me Learn A Part Of It By Heart.

Man's Only True Happiness Is To Live In Hope Of Something To Be Won By Him.

Men Don't And Can't Live By Exchanging Articles, But By Producing Them. They Don't Live By Trade, But By Work. Give Up That Foolish And Vain Title Of Trades Unions; And Take That Of Laborers Unions.

Multitudes Think They Like To Do Evil; Yet No Man Ever Really Enjoyed Doing Evil Since God Made The World.

It Is Impossible To Tell You The Perfect Sweetness Of The Lips And Closed Eyes, Nor The Solemnity Of The Seal Of Death Which Is Set Upon The Whole Figure. It Is, In Every Way, Perfect--truth Itself, But Truth Selected With Inconceivable Refinement Of Feeling.

Science Lives Only In Quiet Places, And With Odd People, Mostly Poor.

Do Justice To Your Brother (you Can Do That, Whether You Love Him Or Not), And You Will Come To Love Him. But Do Injustice To Him Because You Don't Love Him, And You Will Come To Hate Him.

If You Can Draw The Stone Rightly, Everything Within Reach Of Art Is Also Within Yours.

We Have Much Studied And Much Perfected, Of Late, The Great Civilized Invention Of The Division Of Labour; Only We Give It A False Name. It Is Not, Truly Speaking, The Labour That Is Divided; But The Men.

In Order That A Man May Be Happy, It Is Necessary That He Should Not Only Be Capable Of His Work, But A Good Judge Of His Work.

So Long As We See The Stones And Joints, And Are Not Deceived As To The Points Of Support In Any Piece Of Architecture, We May Rather Praise Than Regret The Dexterous Artifices Which Compel Us To Feel As If There Were Fibre In Its Shafts And Life In Its Branches.

When We Build, Let Us Think That We Build Forever. Let It Not Be For Present Delight Nor For Our Use Alone. Let It Be Such Work As Our Descendants Will Look Upon With Praise And Thanksgiving In Their Hearts.

One Who Does Not Know When To Die, Does Not Know How To Live.

The Greatest Efforts Of The Race Have Always Been Traceable To The Love Of Praise, As The Greatest Catastrophes To The Love Of Pleasure.

No Architecture Can Be Truly Noble Which Is Not Imperfect.

As In The Instances Of Alchemy, Astrology, Witchcraft, And Other Such Popular Creeds, Political Economy, Has A Plausible Idea At The Root Of It.

Once Thoroughly Our Own, The Knowledge Ceases To Give Us Pleasure.

The Constant Duty Of Every Man To His Fellows Is To Ascertain His Own Powers And Special Gifts, And To Strengthen Them For The Help Of Others.

Doing Is The Great Thing, For If People Resolutely Do What Is Right, They Come In Time To Like Doing It.

The Beauty Of The Animal Form Is In Exact Proportion To The Amount Of Moral And Intellectual Virtue Expressed By It.

No Good Work Whatever Can Be Perfect, And The Demand For Perfection Is Always A Sign Of A Misunderstanding Of The Ends Of Art.

Borrowers Are Nearly Always Ill-spenders, And It Is With Lent Money That All Evil Is Mainly Done And All Unjust War Protracted.

... No Human Actions Ever Were Intended By The Maker Of Men To Be Guided By Balances Of Expediency, But By Balances Of Justice.

Architecture Concerns Itself Only With Those Characters Of An Edifice Which Are Above And Beyond Its Common Use.

To Be Taught To Read—what Is The Use Of That, If You Know Not Whether What You Read Is False Or True? To Be Taught To Write Or To Speak—but What Is The Use Of Speaking, If You Have Nothing To Say? To Be Taught To Think—nay, What Is The Use Of Being Able To Think, If You Have Nothing To Think Of? But To Be Taught To See Is To Gain Word And Thought At Once, And Both True.

Men Cannot Not Live By Exchanging Articles, But Producing Them. They Live By Work Not Trade.

The Object Of True Education Is To Make People Not Merely Do The Right Things, But Enjoy Them

Butforme, Thealps And Their Peoplewerealikebeautiful In Their Snow, And Their Humanity; And I Wanted, Neither For Them Nor Myself, Sight Of Any Thrones In Heaven But The Rocks, Or Of Any Spirits In Heaven But The Clouds.

The True End Of Education Is Not Only To Make The Young Learned, But To Make Them Love Learning; Not Only To Make Them Industrious, But To Make Them Love Industry; Not Only To Make Them Virtuous, But To Make Them Love Virtue; Not Only To Make Them Just, But To Make Them Hunger And Thirst After Justice.

Hunger And Thirst

Childhood Often Holds A Truth With Its Feeble Finger, Which The Grasp Of Manhood Cannot Retain,--which It Is The Pride Of Utmost Age To Recover.

This Is The True Nature Of Home - It Is The Place Of Peace; The Shelter, Not Only From All Injury, But From All Terror, Doubt, And Division.

No Picture Can Be Good Which Deceives By Its Imitation, For The Very Reason That Nothing Can Be Beautiful Which Is Not True.

Science Deals Exclusively With Things As They Are In Themselves; And Art Exclusively With Things As They Affect The Human Sense And Human Soul.

The Divine Mind Is As Visible In Its Full Energy Of Operation On Every Lowly Bank And Mouldering Stone As In The Lifting Of The Pillars Of Heaven, And Settling The Foundation Of The Earth.

One Can't Be Angry When One Looks At A Penguin.

Greatness Is The Aggregation Of Minuteness; Nor Can Its Sublimity Be Felt Truthfully By Any Mind Unaccustomed To The Affectionate Watching Of What Is Least.

If The Thing Is Impossible, You Need Not Trouble Yourselves About It; If Possible, Try For It.

I Used To Lie Down On The Grass And Draw The Blades As They Grew - Until Every Square Foot Of Meadow, Or Mossy Bank, Became A Possession To Me.

Nearly All Our Powerful Men In This Age Of The World Are Unbelievers; The Best Of Them In Doubt And Misery; The Worst In Reckless Defiance; The Plurality, In Plodding Hesitation, Doing, As Well As They Can, What Practical Work Lies Ready To Their Hands.

If You Do Not Wish For His Kingdom Do Not Pray For It. But If You Do You Must Do More Than Pray For It, You Must Work For It.

You Can Only Possess Beauty Through Understanding It.

It Is Excellent Discipline For An Author To Feel That He Must Say All That He Has To Say In The Fewest Possible Words, Or His Readers Is Sure To Skip Them.

Labour Without Joy Is Base. Labour Without Sorrow Is Base. Sorrow Without Labour Is Base. Joy Without Labour Is Base.

In General, When The Imagination Is At All Noble, It Is Irresistible, And Therefore Those Who Can At All Resist It Ought To Resist It. Be A Plain Topographer If You Possibly Can; If Nature Meant You To Be Anything Else, She Will Force You To It; But Never Try To Be A Prophet.

If You Want Knowledge, You Must Toil For It; If Food, You Must Toil For It; And If Pleasure, You Must Toil For It: Toil Is The Law.

Beauty Deprived Of Its Proper Foils And Adjuncts Ceases To Be Enjoyed As Beauty, Just As Light Deprived Of All Shadows Ceases To Be Enjoyed As Light.

There Is Hardly Anything In The World That Some Man Cannot Make A Little Worse And Sell A Little Cheaper, And The People Who Consider Price Only Are This Man's Lawful Prey.

No Peace Was Ever Won From Fate By Subterfuge Or Argument; No Peace Is Ever In Store For Any Of Us, But That Which We Shall Win By Victory Over Shame Or Sin--victory Over The Sin That Oppresses, As Well As Over That Which Corrupts.

Fine Art Is That In Which The Hand, The Head, And The Heart Of Man Go Together.

In Health Of Mind And Body, Men Should See With Their Own Eyes, Hear And Speak Without Trumpets, Walk On Their Feet, Not On Wheels, And Work And War With Their Arms, Not With Engine-beams, Nor Rifles Warranted To Kill Twenty Men At A Shot Before You Can See Them.

Mighty Of Heart, Mighty Of Mind, Magnanimous-to Be This Is Indeed To Be Great In Life.

The Training Which Makes Men Happiest In Themselves ... Also Makes Them Most Serviceable To Others

We Must Note Carefully What Distinction There Is Between A Healthy And A Diseased Love Of Change; For As It Was In Healthy Love Of Change That The Gothic Architecture Rose, It Was Partly In Consequence Of Diseased Love Of Change That It Was Destroyed.

A Little Group Of Wise Hearts Is Better Than A Wilderness Full Of Fools.

The Infinity Of God Is Not Mysterious, It Is Only Unfathomable; Not Concealed, But Incomprehensible; It Is A Clear Infinity, The Darkness Of The Pure Unsearchable Sea.

Sculpture Is Not The Mere Cutting Of The Form Of Anything In Stone; It Is The Cutting Of The Effect Of It. Very Often The True Form, In The Marble, Would Not Be In The Least Like Itself.

Unless We Perform Divine Service With Every Willing Act Of Our Life, We Never Perform It At All.

Courage, So Far As It Is A Sign Of Race, Is Peculiarly The Mark Of A Gentleman Or A Lady; But It Becomes Vulgar If Rude Or Insensitive, While Timidity Is Not Vulgar, If It Be A Characteristic Of Race Or Fineness Of Make. A Fawn Is Not Vulgar In Being Timid, Nor A Crocodile "gentle" Because Courageous.

We Were Not Sent Into This World To Do Anything Into Which We Cannot Put Our Hearts.

Quality Is Never An Accident. It Is Always The Result Of Intelligent Effort.

Do Not Think It Wasted Time To Submit Yourselves To Any Influence Which May Bring Upon You Any Noble Feeling.

The Entire Object Of True Education Is To Make People Not Merely Do The Right Things, But Enjoy The Right Things — Not Merely Industrious, But To Love Industry — Not Merely Learned, But To Love Knowledge — Not Merely Pure, But To Love Purity — Not Merely Just, But To Hunger And Thirst After Justice.

All The Best Things And Treasures Of This World Are Not To Be Produced By Each Generation For Itself; But We Are All Intended, Not To Carve Our Work In Snow That Will Melt, But Each And All Of Us To Be Continually Rolling A Great White Gathering Snow-ball, Higher And Higher, Larger And Larger, Along The Alps Of Human Power.

Of All The Affected, Sapless, Soulless, Beginningless, Endless, Topless, Bottomless, Topsiturviest, Scrannel- Pipiest, Tongs And Boniest Doggerel Of Sounds I Ever Endured The Deadliest Of, That Eternityof Nothing Wasthe Deadliest.

Wise Laws And Just Restraints Are To A Noble Nation Not Chains, But Chains Of Mail, -- Strength And Defense, Though Something Of An Incumbrance.

It Is Among Children Only, And As Children Only, That You Will Find Medicine For Your Healing And True Wisdom For Your Teaching.

Our Duty Is To Preserve What The Past Has Had To Say For Itself, And To Say For Ourselves What Shall Be True For The Future.

Science Is The Knowledge Of Constant Things, Not Merely Of Passing Events, And Is Properly Less The Knowledge Of General Laws Than Of Existing Facts.

No Girl Who Is Well Bred, 'kind, And Modest, Is Ever Offensively Plain; All Real Deformity Means Want Of Manners, Or Of Heart.

Milton Saw Not, And Beethoven Heard Not, But The Sense Of Beauty Was Upon Them, And They Fain Must Speak.

Every Noble Life Leaves The Fibre Of It Interwoven Forever In The Work Of The World.

The Truths Of Nature Are One Eternal Change, One Infinite Variety. There Is No Bush On The Face Of The Globe Exactly Like Another Bush; There Are No Two Trees In The Forest Whose Boughs Bend Into The Same Network, Nor Two Leaves On The Same Tree Which Could Not Be Told One From The Other, Nor Two Waves In The Sea Exactly Alike.

It Is In This Power Of Saying Everything, And Yet Saying Nothing Too Plainly, That The Perfection Of Art Consists.

Expression, Sentiment, Truth To Nature, Are Essential: But All Those Are Not Enough. I Never Care To Look At A Picture Again, If It Be Ill Composed; And If Well Composed I Can Hardly Leave Off Looking At It.

Production Does Not Consist In Things Laboriously Made, But In Things Serviceably Consumable; And The Question For The Nation Is Not How Much Labour It Employs, But How Much Life It Produces.

Nobody Cares Much At Heart About Titian, Only There Is A Strange Undercurrent Of Everlasting Murmur About His Name, Which Means The Deep Consent Of All Great Men That He Is Greater Than They.

Give A Little Love To A Child, And You Get A Great Deal Back.

No Divine Terror Will Ever Be Found In The Work Of The Man Who Wastes A Colossal Strength In Elaborating Toys; For The First Lesson That Terror Is Sent To Teach Us Is, The Value Of The Human Soul, And The Shortness Of Mortal Time.

What Is Poetry? The Suggestion, By The Imagination, Of Noble Grounds For The Noble Emotions.

The Sculptor Does Not Work For The Anatomist, But For The Common Observer Of Life And Nature.

You Must Get Into The Habit Of Looking Intensely At Words, And Assuring Yourself Of Their Meaning, Syllable By Syllable-nay, Letter By Letter... You Might Read All The Books In The British Museum (if You Could Live Long Enough) And Remain An Utterly "illiterate," Undeducated Person; But If You Read Ten Pages Of A Good Book, Letter By Letter, - That Is To Say, With Real Accuracy- You Are For Evermore In Some Measure An Educated Person.

The Greatest Reward Is Not What We Receive For Our Labor, But What We Become By It.

The Question Is Not What Man Can Scorn, Or Disparage, Or Find Fault With, But What He Can Love, And Value, And Appreciate.

Nearly All The Evils In The Church Have Arisen From Bishops Desiring Power More Than Light. They Want Authority, Not Outlook.

I Do Not Believe That Any Peacock Envies Another Peacock His Tail, Because Every Peacock Is Persuaded That His Own Tail Is The Finest In The World. The Consequence Of This Is That Peacocks Are Peaceable Birds.

It Was Stated, . . . That The Value Of Architecture Depended On Two Distinct Characters:--the One, The Impression It Receives From Human Power; The Other, The Image It Bears Of The Natural Creation.

Not Without Design Does God Write The Music Of Our Lives.

The Great Cry That Rises From All Our Manufacturing Cities, Louder Than The Furnace Blast, Is All In Very Deed For This -- That We Manufacture Everything There Except Men.

You Do Not See With The Lens Of The Eye. You Seen Through That, And By Means Of That, But You See With The Soul Of The Eye.

Success By The Laws Of Competition Signifies A Victory Over Others By Obtaining The Direction And Profits Of Their Work. This Is The Real Source Of All Great Riches.

That Man Is Always Happy Who Is In The Presence Of Something Which He Cannot Know To The Full, Which He Is Always Going On To Know.

The Secret Of Language Is The Secret Of Sympathy, And Its Full Charm Is Possible Only To The Gentle

All You Have Really To Do Is To Keep Your Back As Straight As You Can; And Not Think About What Is Upon It. The Real And Essential Meaning Of "virtue" Is That Straightness Of Back.

He Who Can Take No Interest In What Is Small Will Take False Interest In What Is Great.

The History Of Humanity Is Not The History Of Its Wars, But The History Of Its Households.

Though You May Have Known Clever Men Who Were Indolent, You Never Knew A Great Man Who Was So; And When I Hear A Young Man Spoken Of As Giving Promise Of Great Genius, The First Question I Ask About Him Always Is, Does He Work?

Wherever Men Are Noble, They Love Bright Colour; And Wherever They Can Live Healthily, Bright Colour Is Given Them—in Sky, Sea, Flowers, And Living Creatures.

There Is Nothing So Small But That We May Honor God By Asking His Guidance Of It, Or Insult Him By Taking It Into Our Own Hands.

To Do Your Own Work Well, Whether It Be For Life Or Death.

However Good You May Be You Have Faults; However Dull You May Be You Can Find Out What Some Of Them Are, And However Slight They May Be You Had Better Make Some - Not Too Painful, But Patient Efforts To Get Rid Of Them.

The First Condition Of Education Is Being Able To Put Someone To Wholesome And Meaningful Work.

Art Is Not A Study Of Positive Reality, It Is The Seeking For Ideal Truth.

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