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

-John Ruskin

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Mountains Are To The

John Ruskin

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

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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.

Every Increased Possession Loads Us With A New Weariness.

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.

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

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.

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?

He Who Is Not Actively Kind Is Cruel!

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

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

All The Best Things And Treasures Of This World Are Not To Be Produced By Each Generation For Itself; But We Are All Intended, Not To Carve Our Work In Snow That Will Melt, But Each And All Of Us To Be Continually Rolling A Great White Gathering Snow-ball, Higher And Higher, Larger And Larger, Along The Alps Of Human Power.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

What Is In Reality Cowardice And Faithlessness, We Call Charity, And Consider It The Part Of Benevolence Sometimes To Forgive Men's Evil Practice For The Sake Of Their Accurate Faith, And Sometimes To Forgive Their Confessed Heresy For The Sake Of Their Admirable Practice.

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.

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

The Plea Of Ignorance Will Never Take Away Our Responsibilities.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

God Alone Can Finish.

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.

When God Shuts A Door, He Opens A Window.

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

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

There Is No Wealth But Life. Life, Including All Its Powers Of Love, Of Joy, And Of Admiration. That Country Is The Richest Which Nourishes The Greatest Numbers Of Noble And Happy Human Beings; That Man Is Richest, Who, Having Perfected The Functions Of His Own Life To The Utmost, Has Also The Widest Helpful Influence, Both Personal, And By Means Of His Possessions, Over The Lives Of Others.

I Am Far More Provoked At Being Thought Foolish By Foolish People, Than Pleased At Being Thought Sensible By Sensible People; And The Average Proportion Of The Numbers Of Each Is Not To My Advantage.

It Ought To Be Quite As Natural And Straightforward A Matter For A Labourer To Take His Pension From His Parish, Because He Has Deserved Well Of His Parish, As For A Man In Higher Rank To Take His Pension From His Country, Because He Has Deserved Well Of His Country.

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 Noble Grotesque Involves The True Appreciation Of Beauty.

Imperfection Is In Some Sort Essential To All That We Know In Life.

Perfection And Imperfection

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

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.

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!

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

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

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.

Fit Yourself For The Best Society, And Then, Never Enter It.

Man's Only True Happiness Is To Live In Hope Of Something To Be Won By Him. Reverence Something To Be Worshipped By Him, And Love Something To Be Cherished By Him, Forever.

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.

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

The Art Of Becoming 'rich', In The Common Sense, Is Not Absolutely Nor Finally The Art Of Accumulating Much Money For Ourselves, But Also Of Contriving That Our Neighbour Shall Have Less. In Accurate Terms, It Is 'the Art Of Establishing The Maximum Inequality In Your Own Favour'.

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.

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

The Last Act Crowns The Play.

Modern Education Has Devoted Itself To The Teaching Of Impudence, And Then We Complain That We Can No Longer Control Our Mobs.

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

The 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.

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

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

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.

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

Inequalities Of Wealth, Unjustly Established, Have Assuredly Injured The Nation In Which They Exist During Their Establishment; And, Unjustly Directed, They Injure It Yet More During Their Existence. But Inequalities Of Wealth Justly Established, Benefit The Nation In The Course Of Their Establishment; And, Nobly Used, Aid It Yet More By Their Existence.

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 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.

What Is The Cheapest To You Now Is Likely To Be The Dearest To You In The End.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

What We Think Or What We Know Or What We Believe Is In The End Of Little Consequence. The Only Thing Of Consequence Is What We Do

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.

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.

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.

Drawing Is A Means Of Obtaining And Communicating Knowledge

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Give An Earnest-hearted, Devoted Girl Any True Work That Will Make Her Active In The Dawn, And Weary At Night, With The Consciousness That Her Fellow-creatures Have Indeed Been The Better For Her Day, And The Powerless Sorrow Of Her Enthusiasm Will Transform Itself Into A Majesty Of Radiant And Beneficent Peace.

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.

Order And System Are Nobler Things Than Power.

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

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

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.

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.

Absolute And Entire Ugliness Is Rare.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

No Changing Of Place At A Hundred Miles An Hour Will Make Us One Whit Stronger, Or Happier, Or Wiser. There Was Always More In The World Than Man Could See, Walked They Ever So Slowly; They Will See It No Better For Going Fast. The Really Precious Things Are Thought And Sight, Not Pace. It Does A Bullet No Good To Go Fast; And A Man, If He Be Truly A Man, No Harm To Go Slow; For His Glory Is Not At All In Going, But In Being.

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

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.

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.

Always Stand By Form Against Force.

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

Though You May Have Known Clever Men Who Were Indolent, You Never Knew A Great Man Who Was So; And When I Hear A Young Man Spoken Of As Giving Promise Of Great Genius, The First Question I Ask About Him Always Is, Does He Work?

Science Deals Exclusively With Things As They Are In Themselves.

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.

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.

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)

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.

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

Work First, And Then Rest.

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

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.

Better A Child Should Be Ignorant Of A Thousand Truths Than Have Consecrated In Its Heart A Single Lie.

All Traveling Becomes Dull In Exact Proportion To Its Rapidity.

I Used To Lie Down On The Grass And Draw The Blades As They Grew - Until Every Square Foot Of Meadow, Or Mossy Bank, Became A Possession To Me.

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

Let Every Dawn Be To You As The Beginning Of Life, And Every Setting Sun Be To You As Its Close.

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.

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.

So Long As We See The Stones And Joints, And Are Not Deceived As To The Points Of Support In Any Piece Of Architecture, We May Rather Praise Than Regret The Dexterous Artifices Which Compel Us To Feel As If There Were Fibre In Its Shafts And Life In Its Branches.

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.

To Invent A Story, Or Admirably And Thoroughly Tell Any Part Of A Story, It Is Necessary To Grasp The Entire Mind Of Every Personage Concerned In It, And Know Precisely How They Would Be Affected By What Happens; Which To Do Requires A Colossal Intellect: But To Describe A Separate Emotion Delicately, It Is Only Needed That One Should Feel It Oneself; And Thousands Of People Are Capable Of Feeling This Or That Noble Emotion, For One Who Is Able To Enter Into All The Feelings Of Someone Sitting On The Other Side Of The Table.

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

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.

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

World Suffering

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.

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

... 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.

In Order That A Man May Be Happy, It Is Necessary That He Should Not Only Be Capable Of His Work, But A Good Judge Of His Work.

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

Likes And Dislikes

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

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.

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

Production Does Not Consist In Things Laboriously Made, But In Things Serviceably Consumable; And The Question For The Nation Is Not How Much Labour It Employs, But How Much Life It Produces.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Answering Questions

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.

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.

Nobody Cares Much At Heart About Titian, Only There Is A Strange Undercurrent Of Everlasting Murmur About His Name, Which Means The Deep Consent Of All Great Men That He Is Greater Than They.

An Unimaginative Person Can Neither Be Reverent Nor Kind.

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

I Would Rather Teach Drawing That My Pupils May Learn To Love Nature, Than Teach The Looking At Nature That They May Learn To Draw.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

Modern Science Gives Lectures On Botany, To Show There Is No Such Thing As A Flower; On Humanity, To Show There Is No Such Thing As A Man; And On Theology, To Show There Is No Such Thing As A God. No Such Thing As A Man, But Only A Mechanism, No Such Thing As A God, But Only A Series Of Forces.

[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.

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

All Great Art Is The Work Of The Whole Living Creature, Body And Soul, And Chiefly Of The Soul.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

The First Duty Of A State Is To See That Every Child Born Therein Shall Be Well Housed, Clothed, Fed And Educated Till It Attains Years Of Discretion.

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

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

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.

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.

Your Labor Only May Be Sold, Your Soul Must Not.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

In Mortals There Is A Care For Trifles Which Proceeds From Love And Conscience, And Is Most Holy; And A Care For Trifles Which Comes Of Idleness And Frivolity, And Is Most Base. And So, Also, There Is A Gravity Proceeding From Thought, Which Is Most Noble; And A Gravity Proceeding From Dulness And Mere Incapability Of Enjoyment, Which Is Most Base.

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

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.

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Though Nature Is Constantly Beautiful, She Does Not Exhibit Her Highest Powers Of Beauty Constantly, For Then They Would Satiate Us And Pall Upon Our Senses. It Is Necessary To Their Appreciation That They Should Be Rarely Shown. Her Finest Touches Are Things Which Must Be Watched For; Her Most Perfect Passages Of Beauty Are The Most Evanescent.

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

Another Of The Strange And Evil Tendencies Of The Present Day Is The Decoration Of The Railroad Station... There Was Never More Flagrant Nor Impertinent Folly Than The Smallest Portion Of Ornament In Anything Connected With The Railroads... Railroad Architecture Has Or Would Have A Dignity Of Its Own If It Were Only Left To Its Work.

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

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