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... Amongst All The Mechanical Poison That This Terrible Nineteenth Century Has Poured Upon Men, It Has Given Us At Any Rate One Antidote - The Daguerreotype. (1845)

-John Ruskin

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... Amongst All The

John Ruskin

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... Amongst All The Mechanical Poison That This Terrible Nineteenth Century Has Poured Upon Men, It Has Given Us At Any Rate One Antidote - The Daguerreotype. (1845)

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Every Human Action Gains In Honor, In Grace, In All True Magnificence, By Its Regard To Things That Are To Come. It Is The Far Sight, The Quiet And Confident Patience, That, Above All Other Attributes, Separate Man From Man, And Near Him To His Maker; And There Is No Action Nor Art, Whose Majesty We May Not Measure By This Test.

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.

Imaginary Evils Soon Become Real One By Indulging Our Reflections On Them.

No Individual Rain Drop Ever Considers Itself Responsible For The Flood.

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

Perfection And Imperfection

In The Utmost Solitudes Of Nature, The Existence Of Hell Seems To Me As Legibly Declared By A Thousand Spiritual Utterances As That Of Heaven.

The Greatest Thing A Human Soul Ever Does In This World Is To See Something And Tell What It Saw In A Plain Way. Hundreds Of People Can Talk For One Who Can Think, But Thousands Can Think For One Who Can See. To See Clearly Is Poetry, Prophecy And Religion, All In One.

All Art Is But Dirtying The Paper Delicately.

What Does Cookery Mean? It Means The Knowledge Of Medea And Of Circe, And Of Calypso, And Sheba. It Means Knowledge Of All Herbs, And Fruits, And Balms And Spices... It Means The Economy Of Your Great-grandmother And The Science Of Modern Chemistry, And French Art, And Arabian Hospitality. It Means, In Fine, That You Are To See Imperatively That Everyone Has Something Nice To Eat.

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

Which Of Us?is To Do The Hard And Dirty Work For The Restand For What Pay? Who Is To Do The Pleasant And Clean Work, And For What Pay?

Depend Upon It, The First Universal Characteristic Of All Great Art Is Tenderness, As The Second Is Truth.

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.

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 Last Act Crowns The Play.

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

To Know Anything Well Involves A Profound Sensation Of Ignorance.

All Great Song, From The First Day When Human Lips Contrived Syllables, Has Been Sincere Song.

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.

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.

Do Not Think Of Your Faults, Still Less Of Other's Faults; Look For What Is Good And Strong, And Try To Imitate It. Your Faults Will Drop Off, Like Dead Leaves, When Their Time Comes.

To Use Books Rightly, Is To Go To Them For Help; To Appeal To Them When Our Own Knowledge And Power Fail; To Be Led By Them Into Wider Sight And Purer Conception Than Our Own, And To Receive From Them The United Sentence Of The Judges And Councils Of All Time, Against Our Solitary And Unstable Opinions.

Knowledge And Power

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.

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

Living Without An Aim, Is Like Sailing Without A Compass.

Science Has To Do With Facts, Art With Phenomena. To Science, Phenomena Are Of Use Only As They Lead To Facts; And To Art, Facts Are Of Use Only As They Lead To Phenomena.

Nature Is Always Mysterious And Secret In Her Use Of Means; And Art Is Always Likest Her When It Is Most Inexplicable.

Of All The Things That Oppress Me, This Sense Of The Evil Working Of Nature Herself -my Disgust At Her Barbarity -clumsiness -darkness -bitter Mockery Of Herself -is The Most Desolating.

Imperfection Is In Some Sort Essential To All That We Know Of Life. It Is The Sign Of Life In A Mortal Body, That Is To Say, Of A State Of Progress And Change. Nothing That Lives Is, Or Can Be Rigidly Perfect; Part Of It Is Decaying, Part Nascent.

Progress And Change

Surely Our Clergy Need Not Be Surprised At The Daily Increasing Distrust In The Public Mind Of The Efficacy Of Prayer.

If A Book Is Worth Reading, It Is Worth Buying.

The Wisest Men Are Wise To The Full In Death.

All Men Who Have Sense And Feeling Are Being Continually Helped; They Are Taught By Every Person They Meet, And Enriched By Everything That Falls In Their Way. The Greatest, Is He Who Has Been Oftenest Aided. Originality Is The Observing Eye.

An Unimaginative Person Can Neither Be Reverent Nor Kind.

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.

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

Perfect Taste Is The Faculty Of Receiving The Greatest Possible Pleasure From Those Material Sources Which Are Attractive To Oar Moral Nature In Its Purity And Perfection.

No Human Face Is Exactly The Same In Its Lines On Each Side, No Leaf Perfect In Its Lobes, No Branch In Its Symmetry. All Admit Irregularity As They Imply Change; And To Banish Imperfection Is To Destroy Expression, To Check Exertion, To Paralyze Vitality. All Things Are Literally Better, Lovelier, And More Beloved For The Imperfections Which Have Been Divinely Appointed, That The Law Of Human Life May Be Effort, And The Law Of Human Judgment, Mercy.

Men Have Commonly More Pleasure In The Criticism Which Hurts Than In That Which Is Innocuous, And Are More Tolerant Of The Severity Which Breaks Hearts And Ruins Fortunes Than Of That Which Falls Impotently On The Grave.

Beethoven Always Sounds To Me Like The Upsetting Of A Bag Of Nails, With Here And There An Also Dropped Hammer.

All Violent Feelings Have The Same Effect. They Produce In Us A Falseness In All Our Impressions Of External Things, Which I Would Generally Characterize As The Pathetic Fallacy.

Genius Is Only A Superior Power Of Seeing.

There Is A Working Class - Strong And Happy - Among Both Rich And Poor: There Is An Idle Class - Weak, Wicked, And Miserable - Among Both Rich And Poor.

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

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.

Work First, And Then Rest.

No One Can Become Rich By The Efforts Of Only Their Toil, But Only By The Discovery Of Some Method Of Taxing The Labor Of Others.

There Is No Wealth But Life.

It Is Only By Labour That Thought Can Be Made Healthy, And Only By Thought That Labour Can Be Made Happy, And The Two Cannot Be Separated With Impunity.

Dream Lofty Dreams, And As You Dream, So Shall You Become.

To Yield Reverence To Another, To Hold Ourselves And Our Lives At His Disposal, Is Not Slavery; Often, It Is The Noblest State In Which A Man Can Live In This World.

Now The Basest Thought Possible Concerning Man Is, That He Has No Spiritual Nature; And The Foolishest Misunderstanding Of Him Possible Is, That He Has, Or Should Have, No Animal Nature. For His Nature Is Nobly Animal, Nobly Spiritual,--coherently And Irrevocably So; Neither Part Of It May, But At Its Peril, Expel, Despise, Or Defy The Other.

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.

You Should Read Books Like You Take Medicine, By Advice, And Not By Advertisement.

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.

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

It Is Excellent Discipline For An Author To Feel That He Must Say All He Has To Say In The Fewest Possible Words, Or His Reader Is Sure To Skip Them; And In The Plainest Possible Words, Or His Reader Will Certainly Misunderstand Them. Generally, Also, A Downright Fact May Be Told In A Plain Way; And We Want Downright Facts At Present More Than Anything Else.

We Are Only Advancing In Life, Whose Hearts Are Getting Softer, Our Blood Warmer, Our Brains Quicker, And Our Spirits Entering Into Living Peace.

An Architect Should Live As Little In Cities As A Painter. Send Him To Our Hills, And Let Him Study There What Nature Understands By A Buttress, And What By A Dome.

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.

On The Whole, It Is Patience Which Makes The Final Difference Between Those Who Succeed Or Fail In All Things. All The Greatest People Have It In An Infinite Degree, And Among The Less, The Patient Weak Ones Always Conquer The Impatient Strong.

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.

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.

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.

Will You Not Covet Such Power As This, And Seek Such Throne As This, And Be No More Housewives, But Queens? There Is No Putting By That Crown; Queens You Must Always Be; Queens To Your Lovers; Queens To Your Husbands And Sons; Queens Of Higher Mystery To The World Beyond. . . . But Alas! You Are Too Often Idle And Careless Queens, Grasping At Majesty In The Least Things, While You Abdicate It In The Greatest.

It Is Not So Much In Buying Pictures As In Being Pictures, That You Can Encourage A Noble School. The Best Patronage Of Art Is Not That Which Seeks For The Pleasures Of Sentiment In A Vague Ideality, Nor For Beauty Of Form In A Marble Image, But That Which Educates Your Children Into Living Heroes, And Binds Down The Flights And The Fondnesses Of The Heart Into Practical Duty And Faithful Devotion.

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

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.

You May Either Win Your Peace Or Buy It: Win It, By Resistance To Evil; Buy It, By Compromise With Evil.

Modern Travelling Is Not Travelling At All; It Is Merely Being Sent To A Place, And Very Little Different From Becoming A Parcel.

All Great Art Is The Expression Of Man's Delight In God's Work, Not His Own.

Inspirational Life

I Believe The First Test Of A Truly Great Man Is In His Humility.

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

We Are Foolish, And Without Excuse Foolish, In Speaking Of The Superiority Of One Sex To The Other, As If They Could Be Compared In Similar Things! Each Has What The Other Has Not; Each Completes The Other; They Are In Nothing Alike And The Happiness And Perfection Of Both Depend On Each Asking And Receiving From The Other What The Other Only Can Give.

Variety Is A Positive Requisite Even In The Character Of Our Food.

God Intends No Man To Live In This World Without Working, But It Seems To Me No Less Evident That He Intends Every Man To Be Happy In His Work.

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

All Really Great Pictures Exhibit The General Habits Of Nature, Manifested In Some Peculiar, Rare, And Beautiful Way.

When Men Are Rightly Occupied, Their Amusement Grows Out Of Their Work.

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.

You Cannot Have Good Architecture Merely By Asking People's Advice On Occasion. All Good Architecture Is The Expression Of National Life And Character; And It Is Produced By A Prevalent And Eager National Taste, Or Desire For Beauty.

Of Human Work None But What Is Bad Can Be Perfect In Its Own Bad Way.

Greatness Is Not A Teachable Nor Gainable Thing, But The Expression Of The Mind Of A God-made Great Man.

At Every Moment Of Our Lives We Should Be Trying To Find Out, Not In What We Differ With Other People, But In What We Agree With Them.

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

No Art Can Be Noble Which Is Incapable Of Expressing Thought, And No Art Is Capable Of Expressing Thought Which Does Not Change.

The Time Is Probably Near When A New System Of Architectural Laws Will Be Developed, Adapted Entirely To Metallic Construction.

Labor Rids Us Of Three Great Evils; Tediousness, Vice, And Poverty.

If The Design Of The Building Be Originally Bad, The Only Virtue It Can Ever Possess Will Be Signs Of Antiquity.

The Spirit Power Begins In Directing The Animal Power To Other Than Egoistic Ends.

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

Likes And Dislikes

He Who Offers God A Second Place Offers Him No Place.

God Alone Can Finish.

Many Thoughts Are So Dependent Upon The Language In Which They Are Clothed That They Would Lose Half Their Beauty If Otherwise Expressed.

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.

Education Is The Leading Human Souls To What Is Best, And Making What Is Best Out Of Them; And These Two Objects Are Always Attainable Together, And By The Same Means; The Training Which Makes Man Happiest In Themselves Also Makes Them Most Serviceable To Others.

To Make Your Children Capable Of Honesty Is The Beginning Of Education.

It Seems A Fantastic Paradox, But It Is Nevertheless A Most Important Truth, That No Architecture Can Be Truly Noble Which Is Not Imperfect.

In The Range Of Inorganic Nature. I Doubt If Any Object Can Be Found More Perfectly Beautiful Than A Fresh, Deep Snowdrift, Seen Under Warm Light.

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.

Hundreds Of People Can Talk For One Who Can Think.

There Is No Harm In Anybody Thinking That Christ Is In Bread. The Harm Is In The Expectation Of His Presence In Gunpowder.

Greater Completion Marks The Progress Of Art, Absolute Completion Usually Its Decline.

Taste Is The Only Morality. Tell Me What You Like And I'll Tell You What You Are.

... A Power Of Obtaining Veracity In The Representation Of Material And Tangible Things, Which, Within Certain Limits And Conditions, Is Unimpeachable, Has Now Been Placed In The Hands Of All Men, Almost Without Labour. (1853)

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.

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.

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.

When Men Do Not Love Their Hearth, Nor Reverence Their Thresholds, It Is A Sign That They Have Dishonoured Both ... Our God Is A House-hold God, As Well As A Heavenly One; He Has An Altar In Every Man's Dwelling.

What Right Have You To Take The Word Wealth, Which Originally Meant Well-being, And Degrade And Narrow It By Confining It To Certain Sorts Of Material Objects Measured By Money.

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.

An Infinitude Of Tenderness Is The Chief Gift And Inheritance Of All Truly Great Men.

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

Depend Upon It, The First Universal Characteristic Of All Great Art Is Tenderness, As The Second Is Truth. I Find This More And More Every Day: An Infinitude Of Tenderness Is The Chief Gift And Inheritance Of All The Truly Great Men. It Is Sure To Involve A Relative Intensity Of Disdain Towards Base Things, And An Appearance Of Sternness And Arrogance In The Eyes Of All Hard, Stupid, And Vulgar People

All Great And Beautiful Work Has Come Of First Gazing Without Shrinking Into The Darkness.

The Power Of Association Is Stronger Than The Power Of Beauty; Therefore, The Power Of Association Is The Power Of Beauty.

Life Without Industry Is Guilt, And Industry Without Art Is Brutality.

Morality Does Not Depend On Religion.

... Amongst All The Mechanical Poison That This Terrible Nineteenth Century Has Poured Upon Men, It Has Given Us At Any Rate One Antidote - The Daguerreotype. (1845)

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.

Science Studies The Relations Of Things To Each Other: But Art Studies Only Their Relations To Man.

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.

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.

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.

You Talk Of The Scythe Of Time, And The Tooth Of Time: I Tell You, Time Is Scytheless And Toothless; It Is We Who Gnaw Like The Worm - We Who Smite Like The Scythe. It Is Ourselves Who Abolish - Ourselves Who Consume: We Are The Mildew, And The Flame.

English Artists Are Usually Entirely Ruined By Residence In Italy.

Say All You Have To Say In The Fewest Possible Words, Or Your Reader Will Be Sure To Skip Them; And In The Plainest Possible Words Or He Will Certainly Misunderstand Them.

To Be Able To Ask A Question Clearly Is Two-thirds Of The Way To Getting It Answered.

Answering Questions

Ignorance, Which Is Contented And Clumsy, Will Produce What Is Imperfect, But Not Offensive. But Ignorance Dis Contented And Dexterous, Learning What It Cannot Understand, And Imitating What It Cannot Enjoy, Produces The Most Loathsome Forms Of Manufacture That Can Disgrace Or Mislead Humanity.

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

Natural Abilities Can Almost Compensate For The Want Of Every Kind Of Cultivation, But No Cultivation Of The Mind Can Make Up For The Want Of Natural Abilities.

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.

The Artist's Business Is To Feel, Although He May Think A Little Sometimes... When He Has Nothing Better To Do.

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.

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

See! This Our Fathers Did For Us.

A Splendour Of Miscellaneous Spirits.

Every Hue Throughout Your Work Is Altered By Every Touch You Add In Other Places.

The Art Of Becoming 'rich', In The Common Sense, Is Not Absolutely Nor Finally The Art Of Accumulating Much Money For Ourselves, But Also Of Contriving That Our Neighbour Shall Have Less. In Accurate Terms, It Is 'the Art Of Establishing The Maximum Inequality In Your Own Favour'.

It Is Not The Church We Want, But The Sacrifice; Not The Emotion Of Admiration, But The Act Of Adoration; Not The Gift, But The Giving.

How False Is The Conception, How Frantic The Pursuit, Of That Treacherous Phantom Which Men Call Liberty: Most Treacherous, Indeed, Of All Phantoms; For The Feeblest Ray Of Reason Might Surely Show Us, That Not Only Its Attainment, But Its Being, Was Impossible..... There Is No Such Thing In The Universe. There Can Never Be. The Stars Have It Not; The Earth Has It Not; The Sea Has It Not; And We Men Have The Mockery And Semblance Of It Only For Our Heaviest Punishment.

When Love And Skill Work Together, Expect A Masterpiece.

Architecture Is The Work Of Nations

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.

Engraving Then, Is, In Brief Terms, The Art Of Scratch.

Another Of The Strange And Evil Tendencies Of The Present Day Is The Decoration Of The Railroad Station... There Was Never More Flagrant Nor Impertinent Folly Than The Smallest Portion Of Ornament In Anything Connected With The Railroads... Railroad Architecture Has Or Would Have A Dignity Of Its Own If It Were Only Left To Its Work.

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.

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

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

Whether We Force The Man's Property From Him By Pinching His Stomach, Or Pinching His Fingers, Makes Some Difference Anatomically; Morally, None Whatsoever.

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

It Is Better To Be Nobly Remembered Than Nobly Born.

No Changing Of Place At A Hundred Miles An Hour Will Make Us One Whit Stronger, Or Happier, Or Wiser. There Was Always More In The World Than Man Could See, Walked They Ever So Slowly; They Will See It No Better For Going Fast. The Really Precious Things Are Thought And Sight, Not Pace. It Does A Bullet No Good To Go Fast; And A Man, If He Be Truly A Man, No Harm To Go Slow; For His Glory Is Not At All In Going, But In Being.

I Am Far More Provoked At Being Thought Foolish By Foolish People, Than Pleased At Being Thought Sensible By Sensible People; And The Average Proportion Of The Numbers Of Each Is Not To My Advantage.

You Will Find That The Mere Resolve Not To Be Useless, And The Honest Desire To Help Other People, Will, In The Quickest And Delicatest Ways, Improve Yourself.

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 Path Of A Good Woman Is Indeed Strewn With Flowers; But They Rise Behind Her Steps, Not Before Them.

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

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

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.

He Is The Greatest Artist Who Has Embodied, In The Sum Of His Works, The Greatest Number Of The Greatest Ideas.

As Unity Demanded For Its Expression What At First Might Have Seemed Its Opposite--variety; So Repose Demands For Its Expression The Implied Capability Of Its Opposite--energy. It Is The Most Unfailing Test Of Beauty; Nothing Can Be Ignoble That Possesses It, Nothing Right That Has It Not.

It Is Not Possible To Find A Landscape, Which If Painted Precisely As It Is, Will Not Make An Impressive Picture. No One Knows, Till He Has Tried, What Strange Beauty And Subtle Composition Is Prepared To His Hand By Nature.

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.

Make Yourselves Nests Of Pleasant Thoughts. None Of Us Knows What Fairy Palaces We May Build Of Beautiful Thought-proof Against All Adversity. Bright Fancies, Satisfied Memories, Noble Histories, Faithful Sayings, Treasure Houses Of Precious And Restful Thoughts, Which Care Cannot Disturb, Nor Pain Make Gloomy, Nor Poverty Take Away From Us.

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.

It Is Not The Weariness Of Mortality, But The Strength Of Divinity, Which We Have To Recognize In All Mighty Things; And That Is Just What We Now Never Recognize, But Think That We Are To Do Great Things By Help Of Iron Bars And Perspiration. Alas! We Shall Do Nothing That Way But Lose Some Pounds Of Our Own Weight.

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

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

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

Blue Color Is Everlastingly Appointed By The Deity To Be A Source Of Delight.

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

God Will Put Up With A Great Many Things In The Human Heart, But There Is One Thing That He Will Not Put Up With In It--a Second Place. He Who Offers God A Second Place, Offers Him No Place.

There Is No Solemnity So Deep, To A Right-thinking Creature, As That Of Dawn.

The Man Who Can See All Gray, And Red, And Purples In A Peach, Will Paint The Peach Rightly Round, And Rightly Altogether. But The Man Who Has Only Studied Its Roundness May Not See Its Purples And Grays, And If He Does Not Will Never Get It To Look Like A Peach; So That Great Power Over Color Is Always A Sign Of Large General Art-intellect.

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

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

The Greatest Thing A Human Soul Ever Does In This World... To See Clearly Is Poetry, Prophecy And Religion All In One.

If We Pretend To Have Reached Either Perfection Or Satisfaction, We Have Degraded Ourselves And Our Work. God's Work Only May Express That, But Ours May Never Have That Sentence Written Upon It, Behold It Was Very Good.

No Amount Of Pay Ever Made A Good Soldier, A Good Teacher, A Good Artist, Or A Good Workman.

When We Build, Let Us Think That We Build Forever.

Painting With All Its Technicalities, Difficulties, And Peculiar Ends, Is Nothing But A Noble And Expressive Language, Invaluable As The Vehicle Of Thought, But By Itself Nothing.

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

Modern Education Has Devoted Itself To The Teaching Of Impudence, And Then We Complain That We Can No Longer Control Our Mobs.

In Our Whole Life Melody The Music Is Broken Off Here And There By Rests, And We Foolishly Think We Have Come To The End Of Time. God Sends A Time Of Forced Leisure, A Time Of Sickness And Disappointed Plans, And Makes A Sudden Pause In The Hymns Of Our Lives, And We Lament That Our Voice Must Be Silent And Our Part Missing In The Music Which Ever Goes Up To The Ear Of Our Creator. Not Without Design Does God Write The Music Of Our Lives. Be It Ours To Learn The Time And Not Be Dismayed At The Rests. If We Look Up, God Will Beat The Time For Us.

Of All The Pulpits From Which Human Voice Is Ever Sent Forth, There Is None From Which It Reaches So Far As From The Grave.

There Is A Certain Period Of The Soul-culture When It Begins To Interfere With Some Of Characters Of Typical Beauty Belonging To The Bodily Frame, The Stirring Of The Intellect Wearing Down The Flesh, And The Moral Enthusiasm Burning Its Way Out To Heaven, Through The Emaciation Of The Earthen Vessel; And There Is, In This Indication Of Subduing The Mortal By The Immortal Part, An Ideal Glory Of Perhaps A Purer And Higher Range Than That Of The More Perfect Material Form. We Conceive, I Think, More Nobly Of The Weak Presence Of Paul Than Of, The Fair And Ruddy Countenance Of David.

It Is A Good And Safe Rule To Sojourn In Every Place As If You Meant To Spend Your Life There, Never Omitting An Opportunity Of Doing A Kindness, Or Speaking A True Word, Or Making A Friend.

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

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

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.

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.

They Are Good Furniture Pictures, Unworthy Of Praise, And Undeserving Of Blame.

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

Life Being Very Short, And The Quiet Hours Of It Few, We Ought To Waste None Of Them In Reading Valueless Books.

Every Great Man Is Always Being Helped By Everybody, For His Gift Is To Get Good Out Of All Things And All Persons.

The First Test Of A Truly Great Man Is His Humility. By Humility I Don't Mean Doubt Of His Powers Or Hesitation In Speaking His Opinion, But Merely An Understanding Of The Relationship Of What He Can Say And What He Can Do.

Much Of The Character Of Everyman May Be Read In His House.

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.

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William Lyon Phelps

Walter Isaacson

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