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If Men Lived Like Men Indeed, Their Houses Would Be Temples -- Temples Which We Should Hardly Dare To Injure, And In Which It Would Make Us Holy To Be Permitted To Live; And There Must Be A Strange Dissolution Of Natural Affection, A Strange Unthankfulness For All That Homes Have Given And Parents Taught, A Strange Consciousness That We Have Been Unfaithful To Our Fathers Honor, Or That Our Own Lives Are Not Such As Would Make Our Dwellings Sacred To Our Children, When Each Man Would Fain Build To Himself, And Build For The Little Revolution Of His Own Life Only.

-John Ruskin

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If Men Lived Like

John Ruskin

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If Men Lived Like Men Indeed, Their Houses Would Be Temples -- Temples Which We Should Hardly Dare To Injure, And In Which It Would Make Us Holy To Be Permitted To Live; And There Must Be A Strange Dissolution Of Natural Affection, A Strange Unthankfulness For All That Homes Have Given And Parents Taught, A Strange Consciousness That We Have Been Unfaithful To Our Fathers Honor, Or That Our Own Lives Are Not Such As Would Make Our Dwellings Sacred To Our Children, When Each Man Would Fain Build To Himself, And Build For The Little Revolution Of His Own Life Only.

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Skill Is The Unified Force Of Experience, Intellect And Passion In Their Operation.

My Entire Delight Was In Observing Without Being Myself Noticed,- If I Could Have Been Invisible, All The Better. . . To Be In The Midst Of It, And Rejoice And Wonder At It, And Help It If I Could, - Happier If It Needed No Help Of Mine, - This Was The Essential Love Of Nature In Me, This The Root Of All That I Have Usefully Become, And The Light Of All That I Have Rightly Learned.

There Was Always More In The World Than Men 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.

Every Increased Possession Loads Us With A New Weariness.

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.

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

Answering Questions

When A Man Is Wrapped Up In Himself, He Makes A Pretty Small Package.

[for Men] To Feel Their Souls Withering Within Them, Unthanked, To Find Their Whole Being Sunk Into An Unrecognized Abyss, To Be Counted Off Into A Heap Of Mechanism Numbered With Its Wheels, And Weighed With Its Hammer Strokes - This, Nature Bade Not, - This, God Blesses Not, - This, Humanity For No Long Time Is Able To Endure.

The True Work Of A Critic Is Not To Make His Hearer Believe Him, But Agree With Him.

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.

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.

We Require From Buildings Two Kinds Of Goodness: First, The Doing Their Practical Duty Well: Then That They Be Graceful And Pleasing In Doing It.

The Best Thing In Life Aren't Things.

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.

The Word "blue" Does Not Mean The Sensation Caused By A Gentian On The Human Eye; But It Means The Power Of Producing That Sensation: And This Power Is Always There, In The Thing, Whether We Are There To Experience It Or Not, And Would Remain There Though There Were Not A Man Left On The Face Of The Earth.

All Art Is But Dirtying The Paper Delicately.

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?

Know Thyself, For Through Thyself Only Thou Canst Know God.

You Cannot Hammer A Girl Into Anything. She Grows As A Flower Does, She Will Wither Without Sun; She Will Decay In Her Sheath As A Narcissus Will If You Do Not Give Her Air Enough; She Might Fall And Defile Her Head In Dust If You Leave Her Without Help At Some Moments In Her Life; But You Cannot Fetter Her; She Must Take Her Own Fair Form And Way If She Take Any.

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.

He Who Has Learned What Is Commonly Considered The Whole Art Of Painting, That Is, The Art Of Representing Any Natural Object Faithfully, Has As Yet Only Learned The Language By Which His Thoughts Are To Be Expressed.

How Long Most People Would Look At The Best Book Before They Would Give The Price Of A Large Turbot For It?

One Evening, When I Was Yet In My Nurse's Arms, I Wanted To Touch The Tea Urn, Which Was Boiling Merrily ... My Nurse Would Have Taken Me Away From The Urn, But My Mother Said "let Him Touch It." So I Touched It - And That Was My First Lesson In The Meaning Of Liberty.

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.

And Besides; The Problem Of Land, At Its Worst, Is A Bye One; Distribute The Earth As You Will, The Principal Question Remains Inexorable, Who Is To Dig It? Which Of Us, In Brief Word, Is To Do The Hard And Dirty Work For The Rest, And For What Pay?

All Are To Be Men Of Genius In Their Degree,--rivulets Or Rivers, It Does Not Matter, So That The Souls Be Clear And Pure; Not Dead Walls Encompassing Dead Heaps Of Things, Known And Numbered, But Running Waters In The Sweet Wilderness Of Things Unnumbered And Unknown, Conscious Only Of The Living Banks, On Which They Partly Refresh And Partly Reflect The Flowers, And So Pass On.

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.

Remember That The Most Beautiful Things In The World Are The Most Useless; Peacocks And Lilies For Instance.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

There Is Nothing So Great Or So Goodly In Creation, But That It Is A Mean Symbol Of The Gospel Of Christ, And Of The Things He Has Prepared For Them That Love Him.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Genius Is Only A Superior Power Of Seeing.

Everything That You Can See In The World Around You Presents Itself To Your Eyes Only As An Arrangement Of Patches Of Different Colors.

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

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.

See! This Our Fathers Did For Us.

When God Shuts A Door, He Opens A Window.

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

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.

It Is A Strange Thing How Little In General People Know About The Sky. It Is The Part Of Creation In Which Nature Has Done More For The Sake Of Pleasing Man.

I Wish They Would Use English Instead Of Greek Words. When I Want To Know Why A Leaf Is Green, They Tell Me It Is Coloured By "chlorophyll," Which At First Sounds Very Instructive; But If They Would Only Say Plainly That A Leaf Is Coloured Green By A Thing Which Is Called "green Leaf," We Should See More Precisely How Far We Had Got.

Architecture Is The Art Which So Disposes And Adorns The Edifices Raised By Man, That The Sight Of Them May Contribute To His Mental Health, Power, And Pleasure.

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.

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

Come, Ye Cold Winds, At January's Call, On Whistling Wings, And With White Flakes Bestrew The Earth.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Some Slaves Are Scoured To Their Work By Whips, Others By Their Restlessness And Ambition.

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.

The Step Between Practical And Theoretic Science, Is The Step Between The Miner And The Geologist, The Apocathecary And The Chemist.

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

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.

Endurance Is Nobler Than Strength, And Patience Than Beauty.

Disorder In A Drawing-room Is Vulgar; In An Antiquary's Study, Not; The Black Battle-stain On A Soldier's Face Is Not Vulgar, But The Dirty Face Of A Housemaid Is.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

No Person Who Is Not A Great Sculptor Or Painter Can Be An Architect. If He Is Not A Sculptor Or Painter, He Can Only Be A Builder.

They Are The Weakest-minded And The Hardest-hearted Men That Most Love Change.

We Have Seen When The Earth Had To Be Prepared For The Habitation Of Man, A Veil, As It Were, Of Intermediate Being Was Spread Between Him And Its Darkness, In Which Were Joined In A Subdued Measure, The Stability And Insensibility Of The Earth, And The Passion And Perishing Of Mankind.

Creation Of Man

The Relative Majesty Of Buildings Depends More On The Weight And Vigour Of Their Masses Than Any Other Tribute Of Their Design.

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.

Sunshine Is Delicious, Rain Is Refreshing, Wind Braces Us Up, Snow Is Exhilarating; There Is Really No Such Thing As Bad Weather, Only Different Kinds Of Good Weather.

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

... 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)

There Are Many Religions, But There Is Only One Morality.

A Great Thing Can Only Be Done By A Great Person; And They Do It Without Effort.

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.

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.

There Is A Satisfactory And Available Power In Every One To Learn Drawing If He Wishes, Just As Nearly All Persons Have The Power Of Learning French, Latin Or Arithmetic, In A Decent And Useful Degree.

The Only Way To Understand These Difficult Parts Of The Bible, Or Even To Approach Them With Safety, Is First To Read And Obey The Easy Ones.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

There Is Rough Work To Be Done, And Rough Men Must Do It; There Is Gentle Work To Be Done, And Gentlemen Must Do It.

It Is Strange That Of All The Pieces Of The Bible Which My Mother Taught Me, That Which Cost Me The Most To Learn, And Which Was To My Childish Mind The Most Repulsive - Psalm 119 - Has Now Become Of All The Most Precious To Me In Its Overflowing And Glorious Passion Of Love For The Law Of God.

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.

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

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

One Of The Worst Diseases To Which The Human Creature Is Liable Is Its Disease Of Thinking.

If Men Lived Like Men Indeed, Their Houses Would Be Temples -- Temples Which We Should Hardly Dare To Injure, And In Which It Would Make Us Holy To Be Permitted To Live; And There Must Be A Strange Dissolution Of Natural Affection, A Strange Unthankfulness For All That Homes Have Given And Parents Taught, A Strange Consciousness That We Have Been Unfaithful To Our Fathers Honor, Or That Our Own Lives Are Not Such As Would Make Our Dwellings Sacred To Our Children, When Each Man Would Fain Build To Himself, And Build For The Little Revolution Of His Own Life Only.

The Purest And Most Thoughtful Minds Are Those Which Love Colour The Most.

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.

In Painting As In Eloquence, The Greater Your Strength, The Quieter Your Manner.

Obey Something, And You Will Have A Chance To Learn What Is Best To Obey. But If You Begin By Obeying Nothing, You Will End By Obeying The Devil And All His Invited Friends.

The Repose Necessary To All Beauty Is Repose, Not Of Inanition, Nor Of Luxury, Nor Of Irresolution, But The Repose Of Magnificent Energy And Being; In Action, The Calmness Of Trust And Determination; In Rest, The Consciousness Of Duty Accomplished And Of Victory Won; And This Repose And This Felicity Can Take Place As Well In The Midst Of Trial And Tempest, As Beside The Waters Of Comfort.

No Human Being, However Great, Or Powerful, Was Ever So Free As A Fish.

A Thing Is Worth What It Can Do For You, Not What You Choose To Pay For It.

Great Nations Write Their Autobiographies In Three Manuscripts The Book Of Their Deeds, The Book Of Their Words, And The Book Of Their Art. Not One Of These Books Can Be Understood Unless We Read The Two Others; But Of The Three, The Only Quite Trustworthy One Is The Last. The Acts Of A Nation May Be Triumphant By Its Good Fortune; And Its Words Mighty By The Genius Of A Few Of Its Children: But Its Art, Only By The General Gifts And Common Sympathies Of The Race.

It Is A Matter Of The Simplest Demonstration, That No Man Can Be Really Appreciated But By His Equal Or Superior.

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.

A Book Worth Reading Is Worth Buying.

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.

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.

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

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

Freedom Is Only Granted Us That Obedience May Be More Perfect.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

All True Opinions Are Living, And Show Their Life By Being Capable Of Nourishment; Therefore Of Change. But Their Change Is That Of A Tree Not Of A Cloud.

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

There Is But One Question Ultimately To Be Asked Respecting Every Line You Draw, Is It Right Or Wrong? If Right, It Most Assuredly Is Not A "free" Line, But An Intensely Continent, Restrained And Considered Line; And The Action Of The Hand In Laying It Is Just As Decisive, And Just As "free" As The Hand Of A First-rate Surgeon In A Critical Incision.

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

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

The Art Which We May Call Generally Art Of The Wayside, As Opposed To That Which Is The Business Of Men's Lives, Is, In The Best Sense Of The Word, Grotesque.

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

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

God Never Imposes A Duty Without Giving Time To Do It.

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.

The Root Of Almost Every Schism And Heresy From Which The Christian Church Has Suffered, Has Been Because Of The Effort Of Men To Earn, Rather Than Receive Their Salvation; And The Reason Preaching Is So Commonly Ineffective Is, That It Often Calls On People To Work For God Rather Than Letting God Work Through Them.

A Forest Of All Manner Of Trees Is Poor, If Not Disagreeable, In Effect; A Mass Of One Species Of Tree Is Sublime.

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.

I Cannot But Think It An Evil Sign Of A People When Their Houses Are Built To Last For One Generation Only.

The Sculptor Must Paint With His Chisel; Half His Touches Are Not To Realize, But To Put Power Into, The Form. They Are Touches Of Light And Shadow, And Raise A Ridge, Or Sink A Hollow, Not To Represent An Actual Ridge Or Hollow, But To Get A Line Of Light, Or A Spot Of Darkness.

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.

A Little Thought And A Little Kindness Are Often Worth More Than A Great Deal Of Money.

The Man Who Accepts The Laissez-faire Doctrine Would Allow His Garden To Grow Wild So That Roses Might Fight It Out With The Weeds And The Fittest Might Survive.

I Do Not Believe That Ever Any Building Was Truly Great, Unless It Had Mighty Masses, Vigorous And Deep, Of Shadow Mingled With Its Surface.

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.

Wherever The Human Mind Is Healthy And Vigorous In All Its Proportions, Great In Imagination And Emotion No Less Than In Intellect, And Not Overborne By An Undue Or Hardened Pre-eminence Of The Mere Reasoning Faculties, There The Grotesque Will Exist In Full Energy.

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

Let Us Reform Our Schools, And We Shall Find Little Reform Needed In Our Prisons.

I Believe That The First Test Of A Great Man Is His Humility. I Don't Mean By Humility, Doubt Of His Power. But Really Great Men Have A Curious Feeling That The Greatness Is Not Of Them, But Through Them. And They See Something Divine In Every Other Man And Are Endlessly, Foolishly, Incredibly Merciful.

Value Is The Life-giving Power Of Anything; Cost, The Quantity Of Labour Required To Produce It; Its Price, The Quantity Of Labourwhich Its Possessor Will Take In Exchange For It.

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

Great Art Is Precisely That Which Never Was, Nor Will Be Taught, It Is Preeminently And Finally The Expression Of The Spirits Of Great Men.

Candlesticks And Incense Not Being Portable Into The Maintop, The Sailor Perceives These Decorations To Be, On The Whole, Inessential To A Maintop Mass. Sails Must Be Set And Cables Bent, Be It Never So Strict A Saint's Day; And It Is Found That No Harm Comes Of It. Absolution On A Lee-shore Must Be Had Of The Breakers, It Appears, If At All; And They Give Plenary And Brief Without Listening To Confession.

In All Things That Live There Are Certain Irregularities, And Deficiencies Which Are Not Only Signs Of Life, But Sources Of Beauty. No Human Face Is Exactly The Same In Its Lines On Each Side, No Leaf Perfect In Its Lobes, No Branch In Its Symmetry.

It’s Unwise To Pay Too Much, But It’s Worse To Pay Too Little.

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

Punishment Is The Last And The Least Effective Instrument In The Hands Of The Legislator For The Prevention Of Crime.

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

No One Can Explain How The Notes Of A Mozart Melody, Or The Folds Of A Piece Of Titian's Drapery, Produce Their Essential Effects. If You Do Not Feel It, No One Can By Reasoning Make You Feel It.

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

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.

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.

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.

It Takes A Great Deal Of Living To Get A Little Deal Of Learning.

It Is Written On The Arched Sky; It Looks Out From Every Star. It Is The Poetry Of Nature; It Is That Which Uplifts The Spirit Within Us.

You Will Never Love Art Well Until You Love What She Mirrors Better.

There Is No Such Thing As Bad Weather, Only Different Kinds Of Good Weather.

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.

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.

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

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.

Cookery Means…english Thoroughness, French Art, And Arabian Hospitality; It Means The Knowledge Of All Fruits And Herbs And Balms And Spices; It Means Carefulness, Inventiveness, And Watchfulness.

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

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.

... 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)

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

See That Your Children Be Taught, Not Only The Labors Of The Earth, But The Loveliness Of It.

And Remember, Child, That Nothing Is Ever Done Beautifully, Which Is Done In Rivalship; Or Nobly, Which Is Done In Pride.

Without Mountains The Air Could Not Be Purified, Nor The Flowing Of The Rivers Sustained.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

In One Point Of View, Gothic Is Not Only The Best, But The Only Rational Architecture, As Being That Which Can Fit Itself Most Easily To All Services, Vulgar Or Noble.

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.

If There Be Any One Principle More Widely Than Another Confessed By Every Utterance, Or More Sternly Than Another Imprinted On Every Atom Of The Visible Creation, That Principle Is Not Liberty, But Law.

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.

You May Chisel A Boy Into Shape, As You Would A Rock, Or Hammer Him Into It, If He Be Of A Better Kind, As You Would A Piece Of Bronze. But You Cannot Hammer A Girl Into Anything. She Grows As A Flower Does.

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

Men Were Not Intended To Work With The Accuracy Of Tools, To Be Precise And Perfect In All Their Actions.

To Banish Imperfection Is To Destroy Expression, To Check Exertion, To Paralyze Vitality.

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

All Of One's Life Is Music, If One Touches The Notes Rightly, And In Time.

The Force Of The Guinea You Have In Your Pocket Depends Wholly On The Default Of A Guinea In Your Neighbour's Pocket. If He Did Not Want It, It Would Be Of No Use To You.

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

Not Only Is There But One Way Of Doing Things Rightly, But There Is Only One Way Of Seeing Them, And That Is, Seeing The Whole Of Them.

The Imagination Is Never Governed, It Is Always The Ruling And Divine Power.

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Witold Gombrowicz

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