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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.

-John Ruskin

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My Entire Delight Was

John Ruskin

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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.

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

The Last Act Crowns The Play.

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.

The Infinity Of God Is Not Mysterious, It Is Only Unfathomable; Not Concealed, But Incomprehensible; It Is A Clear Infinity, The Darkness Of The Pure Unsearchable Sea.

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.

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.

To Do Your Own Work Well, Whether It Be For Life Or Death.

I Believe That The Sight Is A More Important Thing Than The Drawing.

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.

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.

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.

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 That Would Be Angry And Sin Not, Must Not Be Angry With Anything But Sin.

Men Are Merely On A Lower Or Higher Stage Of An Eminence, Whose Summit Is God's Throne Infinitely Above All; And There Is Just As Much Reason For The Wisest As For The Simplest Man Being Discontent With His Position, As Respects The Real Quantity Of Knowledge He Possesses.

I Wish They Would Use English Instead Of Greek Words. When I Want To Know Why A Leaf Is Green, They Tell Me It Is Coloured By "chlorophyll," Which At First Sounds Very Instructive; But If They Would Only Say Plainly That A Leaf Is Coloured Green By A Thing Which Is Called "green Leaf," We Should See More Precisely How Far We Had Got.

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.

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.

... 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)

Drawing Is A Means Of Obtaining And Communicating Knowledge

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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

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

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

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

It Is A Matter Of The Simplest Demonstration, That No Man Can Be Really Appreciated But By His Equal Or Superior.

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

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

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

To Know Anything Well Involves A Profound Sensation Of Ignorance.

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.

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.

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

Work First, And Then Rest.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

No One Can Become Rich By The Efforts Of Only Their Toil, But Only By The Discovery Of Some Method Of Taxing The Labor Of Others.

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

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.

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.

The Greatest Thing A Human Soul Ever Does In This World Is To See Something And Tell What It Saw In A Plain Way. Hundreds Of People Can Talk For One Who Can Think, But Thousands Can Think For One Who Can See. To See Clearly Is Poetry, Prophecy And Religion, All In One.

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

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.

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

The Entire Object Of True Education Is To Make People Not Merely Do The Right Things, But Enjoy The Right Things — Not Merely Industrious, But To Love Industry — Not Merely Learned, But To Love Knowledge — Not Merely Pure, But To Love Purity — Not Merely Just, But To Hunger And Thirst After Justice.

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

Science Deals Exclusively With Things As They Are In Themselves.

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

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

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

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

... 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)

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

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.

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.

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.

In The Utmost Solitudes Of Nature, The Existence Of Hell Seems To Me As Legibly Declared By A Thousand Spiritual Utterances As That Of Heaven.

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

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

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?

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.

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.

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

Our Respect For The Dead, When They Are Just Dead, Is Something Wonderful, And The Way We Show It More Wonderful Still. We Show It With Black Feathers And Black Horses; We Show It With Black Dresses And Black Heraldries; We Show It With Costly Obelisks And Sculptures Of Sorrow, Which Spoil Half Of Our Beautiful Cathedrals. We Show It With Frightful Gratings And Vaults, And Lids Of Dismal Stone, In The Midst Of The Quiet Grass; And Last, And Not Least, We Show It By Permitting Ourselves To Tell Any Number Of Falsehoods We Think Amiable Or Credible In The Epitaph.

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

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

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. In Due Time, When We Have Nothing Better To Set People To Work At, It May Be Right To Let Them Make Lace And Cut Jewels; But As Long As There Are Any Who Have No Blankets For Their Beds, And No Rags For Their Bodies, So Long It Is Blanket-making And Tailoring We Must Set People To Work At, Not Lace.

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

Genius Is Only A Superior Power Of Seeing.

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.

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

Better The Rudest Work That Tells A Story Or Records A Fact, Than The Richest Without Meaning.

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.

The Relative Majesty Of Buildings Depends More On The Weight And Vigour Of Their Masses Than Any Other Tribute Of Their Design.

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

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.

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!

Commerce Is The Agency By Which The Power Of Choice Is Obtained.

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

Quality Is Never An Accident; It Is Always The Result Of High Intention, Sincere Effort, Intelligent Direction And Skillful Execution; It Represents The Wise Choice Of Many Alternatives, The Cumulative Experience Of Many Masters Of Craftsmanship. Quality Also Marks The Search For An Ideal After Necessity Has Been Satisfied And Mere Usefulness Achieved.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

When I Have Been Unhappy, I Have Heard An Opera... And It Seemed The Shrieking Of Winds; When I Am Happy, A Sparrow's Chirp Is Delicious To Me. But It Is Not The Chirp That Makes Me Happy, But I That Make It Sweet.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

What Right Have You To Take The Word Wealth, Which Originally Meant Well-being, And Degrade And Narrow It By Confining It To Certain Sorts Of Material Objects Measured By Money.

The Entire Vitality Of Art Depends Upon Its Being Either Full Of Truth, Or Full Of Use; And That, However Pleasant, Wonderful, Or Impressive It May Be In Itself, It Must Yet Be Of Inferior Kind, And Tend To Deeper Inferiority, Unless It Has Clearly One Of These Main Objects, Either To State A True Thing, Or To Adorn A Serviceable One.

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.

Depend Upon It, The First Universal Characteristic Of All Great Art Is Tenderness, As The Second Is Truth. I Find This More And More Every Day: An Infinitude Of Tenderness Is The Chief Gift And Inheritance Of All The Truly Great Men. It Is Sure To Involve A Relative Intensity Of Disdain Towards Base Things, And An Appearance Of Sternness And Arrogance In The Eyes Of All Hard, Stupid, And Vulgar People

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.

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

Civilization Is The Making Of Civil Persons.

Wherever The Human Mind Is Healthy And Vigorous In All Its Proportions, Great In Imagination And Emotion No Less Than In Intellect, And Not Overborne By An Undue Or Hardened Pre-eminence Of The Mere Reasoning Faculties, There The Grotesque Will Exist In Full Energy.

It Is Strange That Of All The Pieces Of The Bible Which My Mother Taught Me, That Which Cost Me The Most To Learn, And Which Was To My Childish Mind The Most Repulsive - Psalm 119 - Has Now Become Of All The Most Precious To Me In Its Overflowing And Glorious Passion Of Love For The Law Of God.

Endurance Is Nobler Than Strength, And Patience Than Beauty.

The Man Who Accepts The Laissez-faire Doctrine Would Allow His Garden To Grow Wild So That Roses Might Fight It Out With The Weeds And The Fittest Might Survive.

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.

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.

You Can Only Possess Beauty Through Understanding It.

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

It Is Advisable That A Person Know At Least Three Things, Where They Are, Where They Are Going, And What They Had Best Do Under The Circumstances.

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.

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.

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.

Success By The Laws Of Competition Signifies A Victory Over Others By Obtaining The Direction And Profits Of Their Work. This Is The Real Source Of All Great Riches.

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

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.

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

If Only The Geologists Would Let Me Alone, I Could Do Very Well, But Those Dreadful Hammers! I Hear The Clink Of Them At The End Of Every Cadence Of The Bible Verses.

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

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.

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.

All Traveling Becomes Dull In Exact Proportion To Its Rapidity.

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

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

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

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

What Do We, As A Nation, Care About Books? How Much Do You Think We Spend Altogether On Our Libraries, Public Or Private, As Compared With What We Spend On Our Horses?

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.

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.

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

The Best Thing In Life Aren't Things.

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.

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

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.

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

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

I Had No Companions To Quarrel With, Nobody To Assist, And Nobody To Thank... The Evil Consequence Of All This Was Not, However, What Might Perhaps Have Been Expected, That I Grew Up Selfish Or Non Affectionate; But That, When Affection Did Come, It Came With A Violence Utterly Rampant And Unmanageable.

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

Every Good Piece Of Art... Involves First Essentially The Evidence Of Human Skill, And The Formation Of An Actually Beautiful Thing By It.

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

He Only Is Advancing In Life Whose Heart Is Getting Softer, Whose Blood Warmer, Whose Brain Quicker, Whose Spirit Is Entering Into Living Peace. And The Men Who Have This Life In Them Are The True Lords Or Kings Of The Earth They, And They Only.

The Virtue Of The Imagination Is Its Reaching, By Intuition And Intensity, A More Essential Truth Than Is Seen At The Surface Of Things.

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

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.

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

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

If There Be Any One Principle More Widely Than Another Confessed By Every Utterance, Or More Sternly Than Another Imprinted On Every Atom Of The Visible Creation, That Principle Is Not Liberty, But Law.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

It Is A Good And Safe Rule To Sojourn In Every Place As If You Meant To Spend Your Life There, Never Omitting An Opportunity Of Doing A Kindness, Or Speaking A True Word, Or Making A Friend.

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.

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.

All Men Who Have Sense And Feeling Are Being Continually Helped; They Are Taught By Every Person They Meet, And Enriched By Everything That Falls In Their Way. The Greatest, Is He Who Has Been Oftenest Aided. Originality Is The Observing Eye.

The 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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Greater Completion Marks The Progress Of Art, Absolute Completion Usually Its Decline.

Order And System Are Nobler Things Than Power.

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.

The Noble Grotesque Involves The True Appreciation Of Beauty.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

The Distinguishing Sign Of Slavery Is To Have A Price, And To Be Bought For It.

Say All You Have To Say In The Fewest Possible Words, Or Your Reader Will Be Sure To Skip Them; And In The Plainest Possible Words Or He Will Certainly Misunderstand Them.

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.

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

A Splendour Of Miscellaneous Spirits.

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

You Do Not See With The Lens Of The Eye. You Seen Through That, And By Means Of That, But You See With The Soul Of The Eye.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

The Wisest Men Are Wise To The Full In Death.

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