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Sky Is The Part Of Creation In Which Nature Has Done More For The Sake Of Pleasing Man, More For The Sole And Evident Purpose Of Talking To Him And Teaching Him, Than In Any Other Of Her Works, And It Is Just The Part In Which We Least Attend To Her.

-John Ruskin

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Sky Is The Part

John Ruskin

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Sky Is The Part Of Creation In Which Nature Has Done More For The Sake Of Pleasing Man, More For The Sole And Evident Purpose Of Talking To Him And Teaching Him, Than In Any Other Of Her Works, And It Is Just The Part In Which We Least Attend To Her.

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Work First, And Then Rest.

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

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

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

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

There Was Always More In The World Than Men 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.

And Thus, In Full, There Are Four Classes: The Men Who Feel Nothing, And Therefore See Truly; The Men Who Feel Strongly, Think Weakly, And See Untruly (second Order Of Poets); The Men Who Feel Strongly, Think Strongly, And See Truly (first Order Of Poets); And The Men Who, Strong As Human Creatures Can Be, Are Yet Submitted To Influences Stronger Than They, And See In A Sort Untruly, Because What They See Is Inconceivably Above Them. This Last Is The Usual Condition Of Prophetic Inspiration.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

And Besides; The Problem Of Land, At Its Worst, Is A Bye One; Distribute The Earth As You Will, The Principal Question Remains Inexorable, Who Is To Dig It? Which Of Us, In Brief Word, Is To Do The Hard And Dirty Work For The Rest, And For What Pay?

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

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

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.

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

A Thing Is Worth What It Can Do For You, Not What You Choose To Pay For It.

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

A Book Worth Reading Is Worth Buying.

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

To Speak And Act Truth With Constancy And Precision Is Nearly As Difficult, And Perhaps As Meretorious, As To Speak It Under Intimidation Or Penalty

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

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.

When Men Do Not Love Their Hearth, Nor Reverence Their Thresholds, It Is A Sign That They Have Dishonoured Both ... Our God Is A House-hold God, As Well As A Heavenly One; He Has An Altar In Every Man's Dwelling.

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.

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.

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

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.

The Time Is Probably Near When A New System Of Architectural Laws Will Be Developed, Adapted Entirely To Metallic Construction.

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.

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

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.

If You Can Draw The Stone Rightly, Everything Within Reach Of Art Is Also Within Yours.

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.

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

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.

No Architecture Can Be Truly Noble Which Is Not Imperfect.

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 Can Only Possess Beauty Through Understanding It.

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

The Last Act Crowns The Play.

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

To Use Books Rightly, Is To Go To Them For Help; To Appeal To Them When Our Own Knowledge And Power Fail; To Be Led By Them Into Wider Sight And Purer Conception Than Our Own, And To Receive From Them The United Sentence Of The Judges And Councils Of All Time, Against Our Solitary And Unstable Opinions.

Knowledge And Power

Order And System Are Nobler Things Than Power.

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

There Is Never Vulgarity In A Whole Truth, However Commonplace. It May Be Unimportant Or Painful. It Cannot Be Vulgar. Vulgarity Is Only In Concealment Of Truth, Or In Affectation.

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

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.

If The Thing Is Impossible, You Need Not Trouble Yourselves About It; If Possible, Try For It.

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

When Love And Skill Work Together, Expect A Masterpiece.

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.

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

[for Men] To Feel Their Souls Withering Within Them, Unthanked, To Find Their Whole Being Sunk Into An Unrecognized Abyss, To Be Counted Off Into A Heap Of Mechanism Numbered With Its Wheels, And Weighed With Its Hammer Strokes - This, Nature Bade Not, - This, God Blesses Not, - This, Humanity For No Long Time Is Able To Endure.

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.

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 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.

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

Absolute Ugliness Is Admitted As Rarely As Perfect Beauty; But Degrees Of It More Or Less Distinct Are Associated With Whatever Has The Nature Of Death And Sin, Just As Beauty Is Associated With What Has The Nature Of Virtue And Of Life.

Geology Does Better In Reclothing Dry Bones And Revealing Lost Creations, Than In Tracing Veins Of Lead And Beds Of Iron; Astronomy Better In Opening To Us The Houses Of Heaven Than In Teaching Navigation; Surgery Better In Investigating Organiation Than In Setting Limbs; Only It Is Ordained That, For Our Encouragement, Every Step We Make In Science Adds Something To Its Practical Applicabilities.

Always Stand By Form Against Force.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

As In The Instances Of Alchemy, Astrology, Witchcraft, And Other Such Popular Creeds, Political Economy, Has A Plausible Idea At The Root Of It.

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.

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.

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.

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.

To Know Anything Well Involves A Profound Sensation Of Ignorance.

Humanity And Immortality Consist Neither In Reason, Nor In Love; Not In The Body, Nor In The Animation Of The Heart Of It, Nor In The Thoughts And Stirrings Of The Brain Of It;--but In The Dedication Of Them All To Him Who Will Raise Them Up At The Last Day.

Without Seeking, Truth Cannot Be Known At All. It Can Neither Be Declared From Pulpits, Nor Set Down In Articles, Nor In Any Wise Prepared And Sold In Packages Ready For Use. Truth Must Be Ground For Every Man By Itself Out Of It Such, With Such Help As He Can Get, Indeed, But Not Without Stern Labor Of His Own.

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

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.

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.

All Art Is But Dirtying The Paper Delicately.

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

You Should Read Books Like You Take Medicine, By Advice, And Not By Advertisement.

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.

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.

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

Likes And Dislikes

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

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

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

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.

The True Grotesque Being The Expression Of The Repose Or Play Of A Serious Mind, There Is A False Grotesque Opposed To It, Which Is The Result Of The Full Exertion Of A Frivolous One.

You Must Get Into The Habit Of Looking Intensely At Words, And Assuring Yourself Of Their Meaning, Syllable By Syllable-nay, Letter By Letter... You Might Read All The Books In The British Museum (if You Could Live Long Enough) And Remain An Utterly "illiterate," Undeducated Person; But If You Read Ten Pages Of A Good Book, Letter By Letter, - That Is To Say, With Real Accuracy- You Are For Evermore In Some Measure An Educated Person.

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

Natural Abilities Can Almost Compensate For The Want Of Every Kind Of Cultivation, But No Cultivation Of The Mind Can Make Up For The Want Of Natural Abilities.

The 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

No Girl Who Is Well Bred, 'kind, And Modest, Is Ever Offensively Plain; All Real Deformity Means Want Of Manners, Or Of Heart.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

In All Things That Live There Are Certain Irregularities, And Deficiencies Which Are Not Only Signs Of Life, But Sources Of Beauty. No Human Face Is Exactly The Same In Its Lines On Each Side, No Leaf Perfect In Its Lobes, No Branch In Its Symmetry.

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

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

Inspirational Life

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

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

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.

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.

When Men Are Rightly Occupied, Their Amusement Grows Out Of Their Work.

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

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.

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

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?

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

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 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.

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

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 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 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.

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

Civilization Is The Making Of Civil Persons.

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 Are Many Religions, But There Is Only One Morality.

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 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.

"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."

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.

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

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.

We Are, After All, Only Trustees Of The Wealth We Possess. Without The Community And Its Resources... There Would Be Little Wealth For Anyone.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Obey Something, And You Will Have A Chance To Learn What Is Best To Obey. But If You Begin By Obeying Nothing, You Will End By Obeying The Devil And All His Invited Friends.

The History Of Humanity Is Not The History Of Its Wars, But The History Of Its Households.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

You Cannot Have Good Architecture Merely By Asking People's Advice On Occasion. All Good Architecture Is The Expression Of National Life And Character; And It Is Produced By A Prevalent And Eager National Taste, Or Desire For Beauty.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Wherever Men Are Noble, They Love Bright Colour; And Wherever They Can Live Healthily, Bright Colour Is Given Them—in Sky, Sea, Flowers, And Living Creatures.

All Traveling Becomes Dull In Exact Proportion To Its Rapidity.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

No Individual Rain Drop Ever Considers Itself Responsible For The Flood.

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.

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.

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

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.

... 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)

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

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

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

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

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

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

He Who Has Once Stood Beside The Grave, To Look Back Upon The Companionship Which Has Been Forever Closed, Feeling How Impotent There Are The Wild Love, Or The Keen Sorrow, To Give One Instant's Pleasure To The Pulseless Heart, Or Atone In The Lowest Measure To The Departed Spirit For The Hour Of Unkindness, Will Scarcely For The Future Incur That Debt To The Heart Which Can Only Be Discharged To The Dust.

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.

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.

Hundreds Of People Can Talk For One Who Can Think.

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

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.

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