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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.

-John Ruskin

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Our Purity Of Taste

John Ruskin

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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.

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

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!

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

Beethoven Always Sounds To Me Like The Upsetting Of A Bag Of Nails, With Here And There An Also Dropped Hammer.

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

A Splendour Of Miscellaneous Spirits.

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.

The Only Absolutely And Unapproachably Heroic Element In The Soldier's Work Seems To Be-that He Is Paid Little For It-and Regularly.

The Proof Of A Thing's Being Right Is That It Has Power Over The Heart; That It Excites Us, Wins Us, Or Helps Us.

Flowers Seem Intended For The Solace Of Ordinary Humanity.

Morality Does Not Depend On Religion.

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

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.

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.

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

Always Stand By Form Against Force.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Work First, And Then Rest.

How False Is The Conception, How Frantic The Pursuit, Of That Treacherous Phantom Which Men Call Liberty: Most Treacherous, Indeed, Of All Phantoms; For The Feeblest Ray Of Reason Might Surely Show Us, That Not Only Its Attainment, But Its Being, Was Impossible..... There Is No Such Thing In The Universe. There Can Never Be. The Stars Have It Not; The Earth Has It Not; The Sea Has It Not; And We Men Have The Mockery And Semblance Of It Only For Our Heaviest Punishment.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Endurance Is Nobler Than Strength, And Patience Than Beauty.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Do Justice To Your Brother (you Can Do That, Whether You Love Him Or Not), And You Will Come To Love Him. But Do Injustice To Him Because You Don't Love Him, And You Will Come To Hate Him.

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.

It Is Not The Weariness Of Mortality, But The Strength Of Divinity, Which We Have To Recognize In All Mighty Things; And That Is Just What We Now Never Recognize, But Think That We Are To Do Great Things By Help Of Iron Bars And Perspiration. Alas! We Shall Do Nothing That Way But Lose Some Pounds Of Our Own Weight.

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.

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.

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

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.

All Art Is But Dirtying The Paper Delicately.

An Infinitude Of Tenderness Is The Chief Gift And Inheritance Of All Truly Great Men.

No Architecture Can Be Truly Noble Which Is Not Imperfect.

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

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

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.

I Believe That The First Test Of A Great Man Is His Humility. I Don't Mean By Humility, Doubt Of His Power. But Really Great Men Have A Curious Feeling That The Greatness Is Not Of Them, But Through Them. And They See Something Divine In Every Other Man And Are Endlessly, Foolishly, Incredibly Merciful.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Do Not Think Of Your Faults, Still Less Of Other's Faults; Look For What Is Good And Strong, And Try To Imitate It. Your Faults Will Drop Off, Like Dead Leaves, When Their Time Comes.

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

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

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

I've Seen The Rhine With Younger Wave, O'er Every Obstacle To Rave. I See The Rhine In His Native Wild Is Still A Mighty Mountain Child.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

People Cannot Live By Lending Money To One Another.

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

There Is No Wealth But Life.

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.

Great Nations Write Their Autobiographies In Three Manuscripts The Book Of Their Deeds, The Book Of Their Words, And The Book Of Their Art. Not One Of These Books Can Be Understood Unless We Read The Two Others; But Of The Three, The Only Quite Trustworthy One Is The Last. The Acts Of A Nation May Be Triumphant By Its Good Fortune; And Its Words Mighty By The Genius Of A Few Of Its Children: But Its Art, Only By The General Gifts And Common Sympathies Of The Race.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

You Will Find That The Mere Resolve Not To Be Useless, And The Honest Desire To Help Other People, Will, In The Quickest And Delicatest Ways, Improve Yourself.

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

The Path Of A Good Woman Is Indeed Strewn With Flowers; But They Rise Behind Her Steps, Not Before Them.

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

You Will Never Love Art Well Until You Love What She Mirrors Better.

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

Nothing Can Be Beautiful Which Is Not True.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

You May Sell Your Work, But Not Your Soul.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

In Order That People May Be Happy In Their Work, These Three Things Are Needed: They Must Be Fit For It. They Must Not Do Too Much Of It. And They Must Have A Sense Of Success In It.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

You Can Only Possess Beauty Through Understanding It.

Temperance, In The Nobler Sense, Does Not Mean A Subdued And Imperfect Energy; It Does Not Mean A Stopping Short In Any Good Thing, As In Love And In Faith; But It Means The Power Which Governs The Most Intense Energy, And Prevents Its Acting In Way But As It Ought.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

It Is Better To Be Nobly Remembered Than Nobly Born.

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

English Artists Are Usually Entirely Ruined By Residence In Italy.

To Follow Art For The Sake Of Being A Great Man, And Therefore To Cast About Continually For Some Means Of Achieving Position Or Attracting Admiration, Is The Surest Way Of Ending In Total Extinction.

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

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

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

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.

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

Hundreds Of People Can Talk For One Who Can Think.

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 Better To Lose Your Pride With Someone You Love Rather Than To Lose That Someone You Love With Your Useless Pride.

Someone You Love

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

See That Your Children Be Taught, Not Only The Labors Of The Earth, But The Loveliness Of It.

Nature Is Always Mysterious And Secret In Her Use Of Means; And Art Is Always Likest Her When It Is Most Inexplicable.

Science Deals Exclusively With Things As They Are In Themselves.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Life Being Very Short, And The Quiet Hours Of It Few, We Ought To Waste None Of Them In Reading Valueless Books.

The Highest Thoughts Are Those Which Are Least Dependent On Language, And The Dignity Of Any Composition And Praise To Which It Is Entitled Are In Exact Proportion To Its Dependency Of Language Or Expression.

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

Likes And Dislikes

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.

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.

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.

Civilization Is The Making Of Civil Persons.

... 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)

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

Nearly All The Evils In The Church Have Arisen From Bishops Desiring Power More Than Light. They Want Authority, Not Outlook.

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.

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.

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

An Unimaginative Person Can Neither Be Reverent Nor Kind.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

A Nation Which Lives A Pastoral And Innocent Life Never Decorates The Shepherd's Staff Or The Plough-handle; But Races Who Live By Depredation And Slaughter Nearly Always Bestow Exquisite Ornaments On The Quiver, The Helmet, And The Spear.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Perfection And Imperfection

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

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.

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

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.

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?

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?

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

Inspirational Life

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 One Can Explain How The Notes Of A Mozart Melody, Or The Folds Of A Piece Of Titian's Drapery, Produce Their Essential Effects. If You Do Not Feel It, No One Can By Reasoning Make You Feel It.

The Artist's Business Is To Feel, Although He May Think A Little Sometimes... When He Has Nothing Better To Do.

Every Hue Throughout Your Work Is Altered By Every Touch You Add In Other Places.

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