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It's Unwise To Pay Too Much, But It's Worse To Pay Too Little. When You Pay Too Much, You Lose A Little Money - That's All. When You Pay Too Little, You Sometimes Lose Everything, Because The Thing You Bought Was Incapable Of Doing The Thing It Was Bought To Do. The Common Law Of Business Balance Prohibits Paying A Little And Getting A Lot - It Can't Be Done. If You Deal With The Lowest Bidder, It Is Well To Add Something For The Risk You Run, And If You Do That You Will Have Enough To Pay For Something Better.

-John Ruskin

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It's Unwise To Pay

John Ruskin

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It's Unwise To Pay Too Much, But It's Worse To Pay Too Little. When You Pay Too Much, You Lose A Little Money - That's All. When You Pay Too Little, You Sometimes Lose Everything, Because The Thing You Bought Was Incapable Of Doing The Thing It Was Bought To Do. The Common Law Of Business Balance Prohibits Paying A Little And Getting A Lot - It Can't Be Done. If You Deal With The Lowest Bidder, It Is Well To Add Something For The Risk You Run, And If You Do That You Will Have Enough To Pay For Something Better.

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

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.

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

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

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!

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

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

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

... 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)

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

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.

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

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

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.

It Is Eminently A Weariable Faculty, Eminently Delicate, And Incapable Of Bearing Fatigue; So That If We Give It Too Many Objects At A Time To Employ Itself Upon, Or Very Grand Ones For A Long Time Together, It Fails Under The Effort, Becomes Jaded, Exactly As The Limbs Do By Bodily Fatigue, And Incapable Of Answering Any Farther Appeal Till It Has Had Rest.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 A Book Is Worth Reading, It Is Worth Buying.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

You May Sell Your Work, But Not Your Soul.

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.

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

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.

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

All Art Is But Dirtying The Paper Delicately.

He Who Is Not Actively Kind Is Cruel!

All You Have Really To Do Is To Keep Your Back As Straight As You Can; And Not Think About What Is Upon It. The Real And Essential Meaning Of "virtue" Is That Straightness Of Back.

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.

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

There'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.

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

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

The Art Of Nations Is To Be Accumulative, Just As Science And History Are; The Work Of Living Men Not Superseding, But Building Itself Upon The Work Of The Past.

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.

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.

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.

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

The Scholar Is Early Acquainted With Every Department Of The Impossible.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

But Whether Thus Submissively Or Not, At Least Be Sure That You Go To The Author To Get At His Meaning, Not To Find Yours.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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."

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.

I Desire ... To Leave This One Great Fact Clearly Stated. There Is No Wealth But Life.

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

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

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.

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

That Which Seems To Be Wealth May In Verity Be Only The Gilded Index Of Far Reaching Ruin

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

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

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

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.

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

When Men Are Rightly Occupied, Their Amusement Grows Out Of Their Work, As The Colour-petals Out Of A Fruitful Flower; When They Are Faithfully Helpful And Compassionate, All Their Emotions Become Steady, Deep, Perpetual, And Vivifying To The Soul As The Natural Pulse To The Body. But Now, Having No True Business, We Pour Our Whole Masculine Energy Into The False Business Of Money-making; And Having No True Emotion, We Must Have False Emotions Dressed Up For Us To Play With, Not Innocently, As Children With Dolls, But Guiltily And Darkly.

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.

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

Inspirational Life

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

It Is 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.

Flowers Seem Intended For The Solace Of Ordinary Humanity.

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 Be Taught To Read—what Is The Use Of That, If You Know Not Whether What You Read Is False Or True? To Be Taught To Write Or To Speak—but What Is The Use Of Speaking, If You Have Nothing To Say? To Be Taught To Think—nay, What Is The Use Of Being Able To Think, If You Have Nothing To Think Of? But To Be Taught To See Is To Gain Word And Thought At Once, And Both True.

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

Don't Just Look At Buildings ... Watch Them.

The Last Act Crowns The Play.

Not Without Design Does God Write The Music Of Our Lives. Be It Ours To Learn The Time, And Not Be Discouraged At The Rests. If We Say Sadly To Ourselves, "there Is No Music In A Rest," Let Us Not Forget " There Is The Making Of Music In It." The Making Of Music Is Often A Slow And Painful Process In This Life. How Patiently God Works To Teach Us! How Long He Waits For Us To Learn The Lesson!

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

Endurance Is Nobler Than Strength, And Patience Than Beauty.

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

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

As Long As There Are Cold And Nakedness In The Land Around You, So Long Can There Be No Question At All But That Splendor Of Dress Is A Crime.

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.

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.

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

The Great Cry That Rises From All Our Manufacturing Cities, Louder Than The Furnace Blast, Is All In Very Deed For This -- That We Manufacture Everything There Except Men.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

When God Shuts A Door, He Opens A Window.

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 Was Stated, . . . That The Value Of Architecture Depended On Two Distinct Characters:--the One, The Impression It Receives From Human Power; The Other, The Image It Bears Of The Natural Creation.

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.

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.

In Every Person Who Comes Near You Look For What Is Good And Strong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

It Is Better To Be Nobly Remembered Than Nobly Born.

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.

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

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.

Human Work Must Be Done Honourably And Thoroughly, Because We Are Now Men; Whether We Ever Expect To Be Angels, Or Were Ever Slugs, Being Practically No Matter.

It Is Excellent Discipline For An Author To Feel That He Must Say All That He Has To Say In The Fewest Possible Words, Or His Readers Is Sure To Skip Them.

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

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

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

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.

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.

There Is No Music In A “rest” That I Know Of, But There's The Making Of Music In It. And People Are Always Missing That Part Of The Life Melody.

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.

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

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

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

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

There Is Hardly Anything In The World That Some Man Cannot Make A Little Worse And Sell A Little Cheaper, And The People Who Consider Price Only Are This Man's Lawful Prey.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Wherever Men Are Noble, They Love Bright Colour; And Wherever They Can Live Healthily, Bright Colour Is Given Them—in Sky, Sea, Flowers, And Living Creatures.

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

Likes And Dislikes

But I Beg You To Observe That There Is A Wide Difference Between Being Captains Or Governors Of Work, And Taking The Profits Of It. It Does Not Follow, Because You Are General Of An Army, That You Are To Take All The Treasure, Or Land, It Wins; (if It Fight For Treasure Or Land); Neither, Because You Are King Of A Nation, That You Are To Consume All The Profits Of The Nation's Work.

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

Whenever You See Want Or Misery Or Degradation In This World About You, Then Be Sure Either Industry Has Been Wanting, Or Industry Has Been In Error.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

... 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)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Greatness Is The Aggregation Of Minuteness; Nor Can Its Sublimity Be Felt Truthfully By Any Mind Unaccustomed To The Affectionate Watching Of What Is Least.

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

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

[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.

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.

You May Assuredly Find Perfect Peace, If You Are Resolved To Do That Which Your Lord Has Plainly Required--and Content That He Should Indeed Require No More Of You--than To Do Justice, To Love Mercy, And To Walk Humbly With Him.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Answering Questions

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.

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

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.

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

The Noble Grotesque Involves The True Appreciation Of Beauty.

The World Is Full Of Vulgar Purists, Who Bring Discredit On All Selection By The Silliness Of Their Choice; And This The More, Because The Very Becoming A Purist Is Commonly Indicative Of Some Slight Degree Of Weakness, Readiness To Be Offended, Or Narrowness Of Understanding Of The Ends Of Things.

Genius Is Only A Superior Power Of Seeing.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

We Need Examples Of People Who, Leaving Heaven To Decide Whether They Are To Rise In The World, Decide For Themselves That They Will Be Happy In It, And Have Resolved To Seek Not Greater Wealth, But Simpler Pleasure; Not Higher Fortune, But Deeper Felicity; Making The First Of Possessions, Self-possession; And Honouring Themselves In The Harmless Pride And Calm Pursuits Of Peace.

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

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.

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.

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