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It Is Impossible, As Impossible As To Raise The Dead, To Restore Anything That Has Ever Been Great Or Beautiful In Architecture. That Which I Have Insisted Upon As The Life Of The Whole, That Spirit Which Is Given Only By The Hand And Eye Of The Workman, Can Never Be Recalled.

-John Ruskin

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It Is Impossible, As

John Ruskin

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It Is Impossible, As Impossible As To Raise The Dead, To Restore Anything That Has Ever Been Great Or Beautiful In Architecture. That Which I Have Insisted Upon As The Life Of The Whole, That Spirit Which Is Given Only By The Hand And Eye Of The Workman, Can Never Be Recalled.

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No Architecture Is So Haughty As That Which Is Simple.

No Small Misery Is Caused By Overworked And Unhappy People, In The Dark Views Which They Necessarily Take Up Themselves, And Force Upon Others, Of Work Itself.

Other Men Used Their Effete Faiths And Mean Faculties With A High Moral Purpose. The Venetian Gave The Most Earnest Faith, And The Lordliest Faculty, To Gild The Shadows Of An Antechamber, Or Heighten The Splendours Of A Holiday.

The Fact Of Our Deriving Constant Pleasure From Whatever Is A Type Or Semblance Of Divine Attributes, And From Nothing But That Which Is So, Is The Most Glorious Of All That Can Be Demonstrated Of Human Nature; It Not Only Sets A Great Gulf Of Specific Separation Between Us And The Lower Animals, But It Seems A Promise Of A Communion Ultimately Deep, Close, And Conscious, With The Being Whose Darkened Manifestations We Here Feebly And Unthinkingly Delight In.

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

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.

Life Is A Magic Vase Filled To The Brim, So Made That You Cannot Dip From It Nor Draw From It; But It Overflows Into The Hand That Drops Treasures Into It. Drop In Malice And It Overflows Hate; Drop In Charity And It Overflows Love.

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

Curiosity Is A Gift, A Capacity Of Pleasure In Knowing, Which If You Destroy, You Make Yourself Cold And Dull.

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.

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?

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.

Nothing Can Be Beautiful Which Is Not True.

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 Can Only Possess Beauty Through Understanding It.

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

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.

God Has Lent Us The Earth For Our Life; It Is A Great Entail. It Belongs As Much To Those Who Are To Come After Us, And Whose Names Are Already Written In The Book Of Creation, As To Us; And We Have No Right, By Anything That We Do Or Neglect, To Involve Them In Unnecessary Penalties, Or Deprive Them Of Benefits Which It Was In Our Power To Bequeath.

[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 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.

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

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.

People Are Eternally Divided Into Two Classes, The Believer, Builder, And Praiser...and The Unbeliever, Destroyer And Critic.

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

To Watch The Corn Grow, And The Blossoms Set; To Draw Hard Breath Over Ploughshare Or Spade; To Read, To Think, To Love, To Hope, To Pray, — These Are The Things That Make Men Happy.

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

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.

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

Mountains Are To The Rest Of The Body Of The Earth, What Violent Muscular Action Is To The Body Of Man. The Muscles And Tendons Of Its Anatomy Are, In The Mountain, Brought Out With Force And Convulsive Energy, Full Of Expression, Passion, And Strength.

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

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.

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.

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.

A Man Is One Whose Body Has Been Trained To Be The Ready Servant Of His Mind; Whose Passions Are Trained To Be The Servants Of His Will; Who Enjoys The Beautiful, Loves Truth, Hates Wrong, Loves To Do Good, And Respects Others As Himself.

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

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.

In Order That People May Be Happy In Their Work, These Three Things Are Needed: They Must Be Fit For It. They Must Not Do Too Much Of It. And They Must Have A Sense Of Success In 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.

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.

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

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.

If A Great Thing Can Be Done, It Can Be Done Easily, But This Ease Is Like The Of Ease Of A Tree Blossoming After Long Years Of Gathering Strength.

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.

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.

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

Large Fortunes Are All Founded Either On The Occupation Of Land, Or Lending Or The Taxation Of Labor.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

There Is No Law Of History Any More Than Of A Kaleidoscope.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

The Noble Grotesque Involves The True Appreciation Of Beauty.

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.

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

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.

Cursing Is Invoking The Assistance Of A Spirit To Help You Inflict Suffering. Swearing On The Other Hand, Is Invoking, Only The Witness Of A Spirit To An Statement You Wish To Make.

World Suffering

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

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

Likes And Dislikes

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.

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.

Sky Is The Part Of Creation In Which Nature Has Done More For The Sake Of Pleasing Man, More For The Sole And Evident Purpose Of Talking To Him And Teaching Him, Than In Any Other Of Her Works, And It Is Just The Part In Which We Least Attend To Her.

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

I Know Well That Happiness Is In Little Things.

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

Society Has Sacrificed Its Virtues To The Goddess Of Getting Along.

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

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

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

There Is Large Difference Between Indolent Impatience Of Labor And Intellectual Impatience Of Delay, Large Difference Between Leaving Things Unfinished Because We Have More To Do Or Because We Are Satisfied With What We Have Done.

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

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

Children See In Their Parents The Past, Their Parents See In Them The Future; And If We Find More Love In The Parents For Their Children Than In Children For Their Parents, This Is Sad But Natural. Who Does Not Entertain His Hopes More Than His Recollections.

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

All Traveling Becomes Dull In Exact Proportion To Its Rapidity.

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

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 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.

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

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

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.

Remember Always, In Painting As In Eloquence, The Greater Your Strength, The Quieter Will Be Your Manner, And The Fewer Your Words; And In Painting, As In All The Arts And Acts Of Life The Secret Of High Success Will Be Found, Not In A Fretful And Various Excellence, But In A Quiet Singleness Of Justly Chosen Aim.

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.

He Who Has Once Stood Beside The Grave, To Look Back Upon The Companionship Which Has Been Forever Closed, Feeling How Impotent There Are The Wild Love, Or The Keen Sorrow, To Give One Instant's Pleasure To The Pulseless Heart, Or Atone In The Lowest Measure To The Departed Spirit For The Hour Of Unkindness, Will Scarcely For The Future Incur That Debt To The Heart Which Can Only Be Discharged To The Dust.

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

If Some People Really See Angels Where Others See Only Empty Space, Let Them Paint The Angels: Only Let Not Anybody Else Think They Can Paint An Angel Too, On Any Calculated Principles Of The Angelic.

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.

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

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

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

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 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.

We Shall Be Remembered In History As The Most Cruel, And Therefore The Most Unwise, Generation Of Men That Ever Yet Troubled The Earth: The Most Cruel In Proportion To Their Sensibility, The Most Unwise In Proportion To Their Science. No People, Understanding Pain, Ever Inflicted So Much: No People, Understanding Facts, Ever Acted On Them So Little.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Always Stand By Form Against Force.

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

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.

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.

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.

You Cannot Get Anything Out Of Nature Or From God By Gambling; Only Out Of Your Neighbor.

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

There Was A Rocky Valley Between Buxton And Bakewell?divine As The Vale Of Tempe; You Might Have Seen The Gods There Morning And Eveningapollo And The Sweet Muses Of The Light? You Enterprised A Railroad?you Blasted Its Rocks Away? And, Now, Every Fool In Buxton Can Be At Bakewell In Half-an-hour, And Every Fool In Bakewell At Buxton.

The Very Cheapness Of Literature Is Making Even Wise People Forget That If A Book Is Worth Reading, It Is Worth Buying. No Book Is Worth Anything Which Is Not Worth Much; Nor Is It Serviceable, Until It Has Been Read, And Re-read, And Loved, And Loved Again; And Marked, So That You Can Refer To The Passages You Want In It.

Men Are More Evanescent Than Pictures, Yet One Sorrows For Lost Friends, And Pictures Are My Friends. I Have None Others. I Am Never Long Enough With Men To Attach Myself To Them; And Whatever Feelings Of Attachment I Have Are To Material Things.

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

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

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

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'.

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

It Is, Indeed, Right That We Should Look For, And Hasten, So Far As In Us Lies, The Coming Of The Day Of God; But Not That We Should Check Any Human Effort By Anticipations Of Its Approach. We Shall Hasten It Best By Endeavoring To Work Out The Tasks That Are Appointed For Us Here; And, Therefore, Reasoning As If The World Were To Continue Under Its Existing Dispensation, And The Powers Which Have Just Been Granted To Us Were To Be Continued Through Myriads Of Future Ages.

Ornamentation Is The Principal Part Of Architecture, Considered As A Subject Of Fine Art.

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 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.

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

A Man Is Born An Artist As A Hippopotamus Is Born A Hippopotamus; And You Can No More Make Yourself One Than You Can Make Yourself A Giraffe.

The Measure Of Any Great Civilization Is Its Cities And A Measure Of A City's Greatness Is To Be Found In The Quality Of Its Public Spaces, Its Parks And Squares.

Civilization Is The Making Of Civil Persons.

To Speak And Act Truth With Constancy And Precision Is Nearly As Difficult, And Perhaps As Meretorious, As To Speak It Under Intimidation Or Penalty

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

Like Other Beautiful Things In This World, Its End (that Of A Shaft) Is To Be Beautiful; And, In Proportion To Its Beauty, It Receives Permission To Be Otherwise Useless. We Do Not Blame Emeralds And Rubies Because We Cannot Make Them Into Heads Of Hammers.

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

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!

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

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

Inspirational Life

... 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)

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?

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.

There Are, Indeed, Two Forms Of Discontent: One Laborious, The Other Indolent And Complaining. We Respect The Man Of Laborious Desire, But Let Us Not Suppose That His Restlessness Is Peace, Or His Ambition Meekness. It Is Because Of The Special Connection Of Meekness With Contentment That It Is Promised That The Meek Shall 'inherit The Earth.' Neither Covetous Men, Nor The Grave, Can Inherit Anything; They Can But Consume. Only Contentment Can Possess.

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.

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.

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

Along The Iron Veins That Traverse The Frame Of Our Country, Beat And Flow The Fiery Pulses Of Its Exertion, Hotter And Faster Every Hour. All Vitality Is Concentrated Through Those Throbbing Arteries Into The Central Cities; The Country Is Passed Over Like A Green Sea By Narrow Bridges, And We Are Thrown Back In Continually Closer Crowds On The City Gates.

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

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

God Shows Us In Himself, Strange As It May Seem, Not Only Authoritative Perfection, But Even The Perfection Of Obedience--an Obedience To His Own Laws; And In The Cumbrous Movement Of Those Unwieldiest Of His Creatures We Are Reminded, Even In His Divine Essence, Of That Attribute Of Uprightness In The Human Creature "that Sweareth To His Own Hurt And Changeth Not.

What Is Really Desired, Under The Name Of Riches, Is Essentially, Power Over Men ... This Power ... Is In Direct Proportion To The Poverty Of The Men Over Whom It Is Exercised, And In Inverse Proportion To The Number Of Persons Who Are As Rich As Ourselves.

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

... The Weakest Among Us Has A Gift, However Seemingly Trivial, Which Is Peculiar To Him, And Which, Worthily Used, Will Be A Gift Also To His Race Forever.

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.

The Names Of Great Painters Are Like Passing-bells: In The Name Of Velasquez You Hear Sounded The Fall Of Spain; .in The Name Of Titian, That Of Venice; In The Name Of Leonardo, That Of Milan; In The Name Of Raphael, That Of Rome. And There Is Profound Justice In This, For In Proportion To The Nobleness Of The Power Is The Guilt Of Its Use For Purposes Vain Or Vile; And Hitherto The Greater The Art, The More Surely Has It Been Used, And Used Solely, For The Decoration Of Pride Or The Provoking Of Sensuality.

Race Is Precisely Of As Much Consequence In Man As It Is In Any Animal.

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.

The Eye Is Continually Influenced By What It Cannot Detect; Nay, It Is Not Going Too Far, To Say That It Is Most Influenced By What It Detects Least. Let The Painter Define, If He Can, The Variations Of Lines On Which Depend The Change Of Expression In The Human Countenance.

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?

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

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

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.

So Far As I Have Myself Observed, The Distinctive Character Of A Child Is To Live Always In The Tangible Present.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

English Artists Are Usually Entirely Ruined By Residence In Italy.

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.

The Essence Of Lying Is In Deception, Not In Words.

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.

Books Are Divided Into Two Classes, The Books Of The Hour And The Books Of All Time.

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.

In Old Times Men Used Their Powers Of Painting To Show The Objects Of Faith, In Later Times They Use The Objects Of Faith To Show Their Powers Of Painting.

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.

No One Can Ask Honestly Or Hopefully To Be Delivered From Temptation Unless He Has Himself Honestly And Firmly Determined To Do The Best He Can To Keep Out Of It.

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

If It Is The Love Of That Which Your Work Represents--if, Being A Landscape Painter, It Is Love Of Hills And Trees That Moves You--if, Being A Figure Painter, It Is Love Of Human Beauty, And Human Soul That Moves You--if, Being A Flower Or Animal Painter, It Is Love, And Wonder, And Delight In Petal And In Limb That Move You, Then The Spirit Is Upon You, And The Earth Is Yours, And The Fullness Thereof.

Morality Does Not Depend On Religion.

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

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

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

It Is Better To Be Nobly Remembered Than Nobly Born.

All The Other Passions Do Occasional Good, But Whenever Pride Puts In Its Word, Everything Goes Wrong, And What It Might Really Be Desirable To Do, Quietly And Innocently, It Is Mortally Dangerous To Do, Proudly.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Conceit May Puff A Man Up, But Never Prop Him Up.

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

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