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It Is Only The Basest Writer Who Cannot Speak Of The Sea Without Talking Of "raging Waves," "remorseless Floods," "ravenous Billows," Etc.; And It Is One Of The Signs Of The Highest Power In A Writer To Check All Such Habits Of Thought, And To Keep His Eyes Fixed Firmly On The Pure Fact , Out Of Which If Any Feeling Comes To Him Or His Reader, He Knows It Must Be A True One.

-John Ruskin

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It Is Only The

John Ruskin

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It Is Only The Basest Writer Who Cannot Speak Of The Sea Without Talking Of "raging Waves," "remorseless Floods," "ravenous Billows," Etc.; And It Is One Of The Signs Of The Highest Power In A Writer To Check All Such Habits Of Thought, And To Keep His Eyes Fixed Firmly On The Pure Fact , Out Of Which If Any Feeling Comes To Him Or His Reader, He Knows It Must Be A True One.

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A Splendour Of Miscellaneous Spirits.

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?

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

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

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.

Work First And Then Rest. Work First, And Then Gaze, But Do Not Use Golden Ploughshares, Nor Bind Ledgers In Enamel.

... 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)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

No Architecture Is So Haughty As That Which Is Simple.

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

One Of The Prevailing Sources Of Misery And Crime Is In The Generally Accepted Assumption, That Because Things Have Been Wrong A Long Time, It Is Impossible They Will Ever Be Right.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Every Increased Possession Loads Us With A New Weariness.

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

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.

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

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.

The Spirit Needs Several Sorts Of Food Of Which Knowledge Is Only One.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Likes And Dislikes

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Answering Questions

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

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

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

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

Progress And Change

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.

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

Endurance Is Nobler Than Strength, And Patience Than Beauty.

Order And System Are Nobler Things Than Power.

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.

To Follow Art For The Sake Of Being A Great Man, And Therefore To Cast About Continually For Some Means Of Achieving Position Or Attracting Admiration, Is The Surest Way Of Ending In Total Extinction.

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

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.

Hundreds Of People Can Talk For One Who Can Think.

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

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

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.

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.

... 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 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.

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.

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

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

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

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

The Truth Of Nature Is A Part Of The Truth Of God; To Him Who Does Not Search It Out, Darkness; To Him Who Does, Infinity.

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

Failure Is Less Attributable To Either Insufficiency Of Means Or Impatience Of Labours Than To A Confused Understanding Of The Thing Actually To Be Done.

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.

Repose Demands For Its Expression The Implied Capability Of Its Opposite,--energy.

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

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

The Noble Grotesque Involves The True Appreciation Of Beauty.

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.

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 Last Act Crowns The Play.

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.

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

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

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.

See! This Our Fathers Did For Us.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Our Purity Of Taste Is Best Tested By Its Universality, For If We Can Only Admire This Thing Or That, We Maybe Use That Our Cause For Liking Is Of A Finite And False Nature.

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.

The Plea Of Ignorance Will Never Take Away Our Responsibilities.

Humanity And Immortality Consist Neither In Reason, Nor In Love; Not In The Body, Nor In The Animation Of The Heart Of It, Nor In The Thoughts And Stirrings Of The Brain Of It;--but In The Dedication Of Them All To Him Who Will Raise Them Up At The Last Day.

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.

Always Stand By Form Against Force.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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?

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

You May Sell Your Work, But Not Your Soul.

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

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.

The Common Practice Of Keeping Up Appearances With Society Is A Mere Selfish Struggle Of The Vain With The Vain.

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 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.

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.

I Fear Uniformity. You Cannot Manufacture Great Men Any More Than You Can Manufacture Gold.

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

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.

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.

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

Cheerfulness Is As Natural To The Heart Of A Man In Strong Health As Color To His Cheek; And Wherever There Is Habitual Gloom There Must Be Either Bad Air, Unwholesome Food, Improperly Severe Labor, Or Erring Habits Of Life.

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

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 No Action So Slight Or So Mean But It May Be Done To A Great Purpose, And Ennobled Thereby.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

The 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.

How False Is The Conception, How Frantic The Pursuit, Of That Treacherous Phantom Which Men Call Liberty.

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

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

Whereas It Has Long Been Known And Declared That The Poor Have No Right To The Property Of The Rich, I Wish It Also To Be Known And Declared That The Rich Have No Right To The Property Of The Poor.

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

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.

Science Deals Exclusively With Things As They Are In Themselves.

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

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.

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

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

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

I Do Not Mean To Call An Elephant A Vulgar Animal, But If You Think About Him Carefully, You Will Find That His Nonvulgarity Consists In Such Gentleness As Is Possible To Elephantine Nature-not In His Insensitive Hide, Nor In His Clumsy Foot, But In The Way He Will Lift His Foot If A Child Lies In His Way; And In His Sensitive Trunk, And Still More Sensitive Mind, And Capability Of Pique On Points Of Honor.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Flowers Seem Intended For The Solace Of Ordinary Humanity.

Trust Thou Thy Love: If She Be Proud, Is She Not Sweet? Trust Thou Thy Love: If She Be Mute, Is She Not Pure? Lay Thou Thy Soul Full In Her Hands, Low At Her Feet- Fail, Sun And Breath!-yet, For Thy Peace, She Shall Endure.

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

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.

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.

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

Morality Does Not Depend On Religion.

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

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.

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 True Grotesque Being The Expression Of The Repose Or Play Of A Serious Mind, There Is A False Grotesque Opposed To It, Which Is The Result Of The Full Exertion Of A Frivolous One.

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

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

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

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

The 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.

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

Someone You Love

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

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

To Give Alms Is Nothing Unless You Give Thought Also.

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

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.

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

Your Honesty Is Not To Be Based Either On Religion Or Policy. Both Your Religion And Policy Must Be Based On It. Your Honesty Must Be Based, As The Sun Is, In Vacant Heaven; Poised, As The Lights In The Firmament, Which Have Rule Over The Day And Over The Night.

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

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 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)

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

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

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

Hunger And Thirst

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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