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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.

-John Ruskin

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It Is Not Possible

John Ruskin

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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.

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I Know Well That Happiness Is In Little Things.

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.

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

The Anger Of A Person Who Is Strong, Can Always Bide Its Time.

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

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."

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

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.

Flowers Seem Intended For The Solace Of Ordinary Humanity.

In Great Countries, Children Are Always Trying To Remain Children, And The Parents Want To Make Them Into Adults. In Vile Countries, The Children Are Always Wanting To Be Adults And The Parents Want To Keep Them Children.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

People Cannot Live By Lending Money To One Another.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

When The Whole World Turns Clown, And Paints Itself Red With Its Own Hearts Blood Instead Of Vermilion, It Is Something Else Than Comic.

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

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

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.

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.

True Taste Is Forever Growing, Learning, Reading, Worshipping, Laying Its Hand Upon Its Mouth Because It Is Astonished, Casting Its Shoes From Off Its Feet Because It Finds All Ground Holy.

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.

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

What Do You Suppose Makes All Men Look Back To The Time Of Childhood With So Much Regret (if Their Childhood Has Been, In Any Moderate Degree, Healthy Or Peaceful)? That Rich Charm, Which The Least Possession Had For Us, Was In Consequence Of The Poorness Of Our Treasures.

A Splendour Of Miscellaneous Spirits.

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.

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

There Is No Climate, No Place, And Scarcely An Hour, In Which Nature Does Not Exhibit Color Which No Mortal Effort Can Imitate Or Approach. For All Our Artificial Pigments Are, Even When Seen Under The Same Circumstances, Dead And Lightless Beside Her Living Color; Nature Exhibits Her Hues Under An Intensity Of Sunlight Which Trebles Their Brilliancy.

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.

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.

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.

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

I Will Not Kill Or Hurt Any Living Creature Needlessly, Nor Destroy Any Beautiful Thing, But Will Strive To Save And Comfort All Gentle Life, And Guard And Perfect All Natural Beauty Upon The Earth.

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.

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

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

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 In Every Animal's Eye A Dim Image And Gleam Of Humanity, A Flash Of Strange Light Through Which Their Life Looks Out And Up To Our Great Mystery Of Command Over Them, And Claims The Fellowship Of The Creature If Not Of The Soul.

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.

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.

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.

Order And System Are Nobler Things Than Power.

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.

... 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.

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

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

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

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.

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

It Is Far More Difficult To Be Simple Than To Be Complicated.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

All That Is Good In Art Is The Expression Of One Soul Talking To Another, And Is Precious According To The Greatness Of The Soul That Utters It.

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.

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

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.

He Thinks By Infection, Catching An Opinion Like A Cold.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

Education Is The Leading Of Human Souls To What Is Best, And Making What Is Best Out Of Them.

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

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.

Your Art Is To Be The Praise Of Something That You Love. It May Only Be The Praise Of A Shell Or A Stone.

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

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

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

Answering Questions

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.

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.

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.

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.

You May Sell Your Work, But Not Your Soul.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

... A 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)

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Never Has Interest In Art Been So High, And Never Has Quality Been So Low.

The Best Thing In Life Aren't Things.

Always Stand By Form Against Force.

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

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.

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

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

I Tell You (dogmatically, If You Like To Call It So, Knowing It Well) A Square Inch Of Man's Engraving Is Worth All The Photographs That Were Ever Dipped In Acid... Believe Me, Photography Can Do Against Line Engraving Just What Madame Tussaud's Wax-work Can Do Against Sculpture. That And No More. (1865)

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

I Am Almost Sick And Giddy With The Quantity Of Things In My Head, All Tempting And Wanting To Be Worked Out.

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

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.

Nature Is Painting For Us, Day After Day, Pictures Of Infinite Beauty.

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

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

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.

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

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

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 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.

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.

There's No Music In Rest, But There's The Making Of Music In It. And People Are Always Missing That Part Of The Life Melody, Always Talking Of Perseverance And Courage And Fortitude; But Patience Is The Finest And Worthiest Part Of Fortitude, And The Rarest, Too.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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 Best Work Never Was And Never Will Be Done For Money.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

The Art Of Drawing Which Is Of More Real Importance To The Human Race Than That Of Writing...should Be Taught To Every Child Just As Writing Is.

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

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.

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

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

He Who Is Not Actively Kind Is Cruel!

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

The Wisest Men Are Wise To The Full In Death.

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.

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.

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.

See! This Our Fathers Did For Us.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Geology Does Better In Reclothing Dry Bones And Revealing Lost Creations, Than In Tracing Veins Of Lead And Beds Of Iron; Astronomy Better In Opening To Us The Houses Of Heaven Than In Teaching Navigation; Surgery Better In Investigating Organiation Than In Setting Limbs; Only It Is Ordained That, For Our Encouragement, Every Step We Make In Science Adds Something To Its Practical Applicabilities.

Genius Is Only A Superior Power Of Seeing.

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.

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

It Is Better To Be Nobly Remembered Than Nobly Born.

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

Government And Cooperation Are In All Things The Laws Of Life. Anarchy And Competition, The Laws Of Death.

That Which Is Required In Order To The Attainment Of Accurate Conclusions Respecting The Essence Of The Beautiful Is Nothing Morethan Earnest, Loving, And Unselfish Attention To Our Impressions Of It.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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Samuel R. Delany

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