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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.

-John Ruskin

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Nearly All Our Powerful

John Ruskin

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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.

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

Endurance Is Nobler Than Strength, And Patience Than Beauty.

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.

No Day Is Without Its Innocent Hope.

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

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

In My House There Is No Attempt Whatever To Secure Harmonies Of Colour, Or Form, Or Furniture.... I Am Entirely Independent For Daily Happiness Upon The Sensual Qualities Of Form Or Colour-when I Want Them I Take Them Either From The Sky Or From The Fields.

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.

When Love And Skill Work Together, Expect A Masterpiece.

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

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.

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

It Is Not Possible To Find A Landscape, Which If Painted Precisely As It Is, Will Not Make An Impressive Picture. No One Knows, Till He Has Tried, What Strange Beauty And Subtle Composition Is Prepared To His Hand By Nature.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

There Is No Law Of History Any More Than Of A Kaleidoscope.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

The 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

It Is Not The Church We Want, But The Sacrifice; Not The Emotion Of Admiration, But The Act Of Adoration; Not The Gift, But The Giving.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

You Might Sooner Get Lightning Out Of Incense Smoke Than True Action Or Passion Out Of Your Modern English Religion.

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

No Small Misery Is Caused By Overworked And Unhappy People, In The Dark Views Which They Necessarily Take Up Themselves, And Force Upon Others, Of Work Itself.

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.

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!

There Is Material Enough In A Single Flower For The Ornament Of A Score Of Cathedrals.

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 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.

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

The 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.

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

There Is No Climate, No Place, And Scarcely An Hour, In Which Nature Does Not Exhibit Color Which No Mortal Effort Can Imitate Or Approach. For All Our Artificial Pigments Are, Even When Seen Under The Same Circumstances, Dead And Lightless Beside Her Living Color; Nature Exhibits Her Hues Under An Intensity Of Sunlight Which Trebles Their Brilliancy.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

In Great Countries, Children Are Always Trying To Remain Children, And The Parents Want To Make Them Into Adults. In Vile Countries, The Children Are Always Wanting To Be Adults And The Parents Want To Keep Them Children.

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.

Of All The Affected, Sapless, Soulless, Beginningless, Endless, Topless, Bottomless, Topsiturviest, Scrannel- Pipiest, Tongs And Boniest Doggerel Of Sounds I Ever Endured The Deadliest Of, That Eternityof Nothing Wasthe Deadliest.

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

It Is Perhaps The Principal Admirableness Of The Gothic Schools Of Architecture, That They Receive The Results Of The Labour Of Inferior Minds; And Out Of Fragments Full Of Imperfectionraise Up A Stately And Unaccusable Whole.

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

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.

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

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.

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

If You Want To Work For The Kingdom Of God, And To Bring It, And Enter Into It, There Is Just One Condition To Be First Accepted. You Must Enter Into It As Children, Or Not At All.

The 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.

An Unimaginative Person Can Neither Be Reverent Nor Kind.

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.

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

Cookery Means…english Thoroughness, French Art, And Arabian Hospitality; It Means The Knowledge Of All Fruits And Herbs And Balms And Spices; It Means Carefulness, Inventiveness, And Watchfulness.

No Architecture Can Be Truly Noble Which Is Not Imperfect.

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.

What Is Really Desired, Under The Name Of Riches, Is Essentially, Power Over Men ... This Power ... Is In Direct Proportion To The Poverty Of The Men Over Whom It Is Exercised, And In Inverse Proportion To The Number Of Persons Who Are As Rich As Ourselves.

I Know Well That Happiness Is In Little Things.

The Great Cry That Rises From Our Manufacturing Cities, Louder Than Their Furnace Blast, Is All In Very Deed For This, That We Manufacture Everything There Except Men; We Blanch Cotton, And Strengthen Steel, And Refine Sugar, And Shape Pottery; But To Brighten, To Strengthen, To Refine, Or To Form A Single Living Spirit, Never Enters Into Our Estimate Of Advantages.

Every Increased Possession Loads Us With A New Weariness.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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)

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.

You Can Only Possess Beauty Through Understanding It.

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.

Civilization Is The Making Of Civil Persons.

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.

However Good You May Be You Have Faults; However Dull You May Be You Can Find Out What Some Of Them Are, And However Slight They May Be You Had Better Make Some - Not Too Painful, But Patient Efforts To Get Rid Of Them.

True Taste Is Forever Growing, Learning, Reading, Worshipping, Laying Its Hand Upon Its Mouth Because It Is Astonished, Casting Its Shoes From Off Its Feet Because It Finds All Ground Holy.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

The Work Of Science Is To Substitute Facts For Appearances, And Demonstrations For Impressions.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

We Shall Be Remembered In History As The Most Cruel, And Therefore The Most Unwise, Generation Of Men That Ever Yet Troubled The Earth: The Most Cruel In Proportion To Their Sensibility, The Most Unwise In Proportion To Their Science. No People, Understanding Pain, Ever Inflicted So Much: No People, Understanding Facts, Ever Acted On Them So Little.

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

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.

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.

The Last Act Crowns The Play.

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.

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.

We Are Only Advancing In Life, Whose Hearts Are Getting Softer, Our Blood Warmer, Our Brains Quicker, And Our Spirits Entering Into Living Peace.

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

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

Absolute And Entire Ugliness Is Rare.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Kind Hearts Are The Garden, Kind Thoughts Are The Roots, Kind Words Are The Blossoms, Kind Deeds Are The Fruit.

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.

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.

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

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

All That We Call Ideal In Greek Or Any Other Art, Because To Us It Is False And Visionary, Was, To The Makers Of It, True And Existent.

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.

To Know Anything Well Involves A Profound Sensation Of Ignorance.

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

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.

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.

Expression, Sentiment, Truth To Nature, Are Essential: But All Those Are Not Enough. I Never Care To Look At A Picture Again, If It Be Ill Composed; And If Well Composed I Can Hardly Leave Off Looking At It.

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

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.

... 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)

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

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

People Cannot Live By Lending Money To One Another.

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

Genius Is Only A Superior Power Of Seeing.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Order And System Are Nobler Things Than Power.

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

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.

"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."

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

A Splendour Of Miscellaneous Spirits.

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.

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

When The Whole World Turns Clown, And Paints Itself Red With Its Own Hearts Blood Instead Of Vermilion, It Is Something Else Than Comic.

English Artists Are Usually Entirely Ruined By Residence In Italy.

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

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'.

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.

No Divine Terror Will Ever Be Found In The Work Of The Man Who Wastes A Colossal Strength In Elaborating Toys; For The First Lesson That Terror Is Sent To Teach Us Is, The Value Of The Human Soul, And The Shortness Of Mortal Time.

Flowers Seem Intended For The Solace Of Ordinary Humanity.

There Is No Wealth But Life.

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

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.

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.

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

Likes And Dislikes

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

The Finer The Nature, The More Flaws It Will Show Through The Clearness Of It; And It Is A Law Of This Universe That The Best Things Shall Be Seldomest Seen In Their Best Form.

You Were Made For Enjoyment, And The World Was Filled With Things Which You Will Enjoy, Unless You Are Too Proud To Be Pleased With Them, Or Too Grasping To Care For What You Can Not Turn To Other Account Than Mere Delight.

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

Which Of Us?is To Do The Hard And Dirty Work For The Restand For What Pay? Who Is To Do The Pleasant And Clean Work, And For What Pay?

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.

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

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.

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.

Always Stand By Form Against Force.

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.

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

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.

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