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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.

-John Ruskin

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Natural Abilities Can Almost

John Ruskin

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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.

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

It Is Impossible, As Impossible As To Raise The Dead, To Restore Anything That Has Ever Been Great Or Beautiful In Architecture. That Which I Have Insisted Upon As The Life Of The Whole, That Spirit Which Is Given Only By The Hand And Eye Of The Workman, Can Never Be Recalled.

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.

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

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.

At Every Moment Of Our Lives We Should Be Trying To Find Out, Not In What We Differ With Other People, But In What We Agree With Them.

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

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.

The Eye Is Continually Influenced By What It Cannot Detect; Nay, It Is Not Going Too Far, To Say That It Is Most Influenced By What It Detects Least. Let The Painter Define, If He Can, The Variations Of Lines On Which Depend The Change Of Expression In The Human Countenance.

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.

Hope- The Recognition, By True Foresight, Of Better Things To Be Reached Here After.

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

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

I Know Few Christians So Convinced Of The Splendor Of The Rooms In Their Father's House, As To Be Happier When Their Friends Are Called To Those Mansions... Nor Has The Church's Ardent "desire To Depart, And Be With Christ," Ever Cured It Of The Singular Habit Of Putting On Mourning For Every Person Summoned To Such Departure.

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

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

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

Remember Always, In Painting As In Eloquence, The Greater Your Strength, The Quieter Will Be Your Manner, And The Fewer Your Words; And In Painting, As In All The Arts And Acts Of Life The Secret Of High Success Will Be Found, Not In A Fretful And Various Excellence, But In A Quiet Singleness Of Justly Chosen Aim.

Nothing Can Be Beautiful Which Is Not True.

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.

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.

The Sculptor Must Paint With His Chisel; Half His Touches Are Not To Realize, But To Put Power Into, The Form. They Are Touches Of Light And Shadow, And Raise A Ridge, Or Sink A Hollow, Not To Represent An Actual Ridge Or Hollow, But To Get A Line Of Light, Or A Spot Of Darkness.

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

This Is The True Nature Of Home - It Is The Place Of Peace; The Shelter, Not Only From All Injury, But From All Terror, Doubt, And Division.

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

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 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.

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.

When Love And Skill Work Together, Expect A Masterpiece.

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.

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 Weakest Among Us Has A Gift, However Seemingly Trivial, Which Is Peculiar To Him, And Which, Worthily Used, Will Be A Gift Also To His Race Forever.

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

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

Not Without Design Does God Write The Music Of Our Lives.

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

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

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

... 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 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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

No Day Is Without Its Innocent Hope.

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.

"taste Is Not Only A Part And Index Of Morality, It Is The Only Morality. The First, And Last, And Closest Trial Question To Any Living Creature Is "what Do You Like?" Tell Me What You Like, I'll Tell You What You Are."

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.

God Has Lent Us The Earth For Our Life; It Is A Great Entail. It Belongs As Much To Those Who Are To Come After Us, And Whose Names Are Already Written In The Book Of Creation, As To Us; And We Have No Right, By Anything That We Do Or Neglect, To Involve Them In Unnecessary Penalties, Or Deprive Them Of Benefits Which It Was In Our Power To Bequeath.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

The Enormous Influence Of Novelty--the Way In Which It Quickens Observations, Sharpens Sensations, And Exalts Sentiment--is Not Half Enough Taken Note Of By Us, And Is To Me A Very Sorrowful Matter. And Yet, If We Try To Obtain Perpetual Change, Change Itself Will Become Monotonous.

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

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

Freedom Is Only Granted Us That Obedience May Be More Perfect.

In One Point Of View, Gothic Is Not Only The Best, But The Only Rational Architecture, As Being That Which Can Fit Itself Most Easily To All Services, Vulgar Or Noble.

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

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

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

There Is No Wealth But Life.

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.

If It Is The Love Of That Which Your Work Represents--if, Being A Landscape Painter, It Is Love Of Hills And Trees That Moves You--if, Being A Figure Painter, It Is Love Of Human Beauty, And Human Soul That Moves You--if, Being A Flower Or Animal Painter, It Is Love, And Wonder, And Delight In Petal And In Limb That Move You, Then The Spirit Is Upon You, And The Earth Is Yours, And The Fullness Thereof.

Surely Our Clergy Need Not Be Surprised At The Daily Increasing Distrust In The Public Mind Of The Efficacy Of Prayer.

A Splendour Of Miscellaneous Spirits.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Hunger And Thirst

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.

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

Let Every Dawn Of Morning Be To You As The Beginning Of Life, And Every Setting Sun Be To You As Its Close: — Then Let Every One Of These Short Lives Leave Its Sure Record Of Some Kindly Thing Done For Others — Some Goodly Strength Or Knowledge Gained For Yourselves.

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.

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

The Only Way To Understand These Difficult Parts Of The Bible, Or Even To Approach Them With Safety, Is First To Read And Obey The Easy Ones.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Architecture Is The Work Of Nations

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 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)

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.

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

The 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.

The Greatest Glory Of A Building Is Not In Its Stones, Nor In Its Gold. Its Glory Is In Its Age, And In That Deep Sense Of Voicefulness, Of Stern Watching, Of Mysterious Sympathy... Which We Feel In Walls That Have Long Been Washed By The Passing Waves Of Humanity.

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

Work First, And Then Rest.

To Yield Reverence To Another, To Hold Ourselves And Our Lives At His Disposal, Is Not Slavery; Often, It Is The Noblest State In Which A Man Can Live In This World.

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.

If You Want Knowledge, You Must Toil For It; If Food, You Must Toil For It; And If Pleasure, You Must Toil For It: Toil Is The Law.

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

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

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.

I Believe That There Is No Test Of Greatness In Periods, Nations Or Men More Sure Than The Development, Among Them Or In Them, Of A Noble Grotesque, And No Test Of Comparative Smallness Or Limitation, Of One Kind Or Another, More Sure Than The Absence Of Grotesque Invention, Or Incapability Of Understanding It.

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

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.

God Never Imposes A Duty Without Giving Time To Do It.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

They Are Good Furniture Pictures, Unworthy Of Praise, And Undeserving Of Blame.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

If We Pretend To Have Reached Either Perfection Or Satisfaction, We Have Degraded Ourselves And Our Work. God's Work Only May Express That, But Ours May Never Have That Sentence Written Upon It, Behold It Was Very Good.

There Is But One Question Ultimately To Be Asked Respecting Every Line You Draw, Is It Right Or Wrong? If Right, It Most Assuredly Is Not A "free" Line, But An Intensely Continent, Restrained And Considered Line; And The Action Of The Hand In Laying It Is Just As Decisive, And Just As "free" As The Hand Of A First-rate Surgeon In A Critical Incision.

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

All Art Is But Dirtying The Paper Delicately.

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Such Help As We Can Give To Each Other In This World Is A Debt To Each Other; And The Man Who Perceives A Superiority Or A Capacity In A Subordinate, And Neither Confesses Nor Assists It, Is Not Merely The Withholder Of Kindness, But The Committer Of Injury.

How Long Most People Would Look At The Best Book Before They Would Give The Price Of A Large Turbot For It?

Great Art Is Precisely That Which Never Was, Nor Will Be Taught, It Is Preeminently And Finally The Expression Of The Spirits Of Great Men.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Hundreds Of People Can Talk For One Who Can Think.

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.

The Art Which We May Call Generally Art Of The Wayside, As Opposed To That Which Is The Business Of Men's Lives, Is, In The Best Sense Of The Word, Grotesque.

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

There Is Nothing So Great Or So Goodly In Creation, But That It Is A Mean Symbol Of The Gospel Of Christ, And Of The Things He Has Prepared For Them That Love Him.

No Human Face Is Exactly The Same In Its Lines On Each Side, No Leaf Perfect In Its Lobes, No Branch In Its Symmetry. All Admit Irregularity As They Imply Change; And To Banish Imperfection Is To Destroy Expression, To Check Exertion, To Paralyze Vitality. All Things Are Literally Better, Lovelier, And More Beloved For The Imperfections Which Have Been Divinely Appointed, That The Law Of Human Life May Be Effort, And The Law Of Human Judgment, Mercy.

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.

Imaginary Evils Soon Become Real One By Indulging Our Reflections On Them.

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.

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

The Step Between Practical And Theoretic Science, Is The Step Between The Miner And The Geologist, The Apocathecary And The Chemist.

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.

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.

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

Always Stand By Form Against Force.

What Does Cookery Mean? It Means The Knowledge Of Medea And Of Circe, And Of Calypso, And Sheba. It Means Knowledge Of All Herbs, And Fruits, And Balms And Spices... It Means The Economy Of Your Great-grandmother And The Science Of Modern Chemistry, And French Art, And Arabian Hospitality. It Means, In Fine, That You Are To See Imperatively That Everyone Has Something Nice To Eat.

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.

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

Inspirational Life

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

There Is A Certain Period Of The Soul-culture When It Begins To Interfere With Some Of Characters Of Typical Beauty Belonging To The Bodily Frame, The Stirring Of The Intellect Wearing Down The Flesh, And The Moral Enthusiasm Burning Its Way Out To Heaven, Through The Emaciation Of The Earthen Vessel; And There Is, In This Indication Of Subduing The Mortal By The Immortal Part, An Ideal Glory Of Perhaps A Purer And Higher Range Than That Of The More Perfect Material Form. We Conceive, I Think, More Nobly Of The Weak Presence Of Paul Than Of, The Fair And Ruddy Countenance Of David.

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

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

You May Sell Your Work, But Not Your Soul.

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.

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.

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

It Is Impossible To Tell You The Perfect Sweetness Of The Lips And Closed Eyes, Nor The Solemnity Of The Seal Of Death Which Is Set Upon The Whole Figure. It Is, In Every Way, Perfect--truth Itself, But Truth Selected With Inconceivable Refinement Of Feeling.

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

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

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