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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.

-John Ruskin

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The Highest Thoughts Are

John Ruskin

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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.

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Your Labor Only May Be Sold, Your Soul Must Not.

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.

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

Perfection And Imperfection

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

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

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

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.

All Real And Wholesome Enjoyments Possible To People Have Been Just As Possible To Them Since First They Were Made Of The Earth As They Are Now; And They Are Possible To Them Chiefly In Peace. To Watch The Corn Grow, And The Blossoms Set; To Draw Hard Breath Over Plowshare Or Spade; To Read, To Think, To Love, To Hope: These Are The Things That Make People Happy.

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

Multitudes Think They Like To Do Evil; Yet No Man Ever Really Enjoyed Doing Evil Since God Made The World.

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

One Can't Be Angry When One Looks At A Penguin.

There Is No Wealth But Life.

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.

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

An Artist Should Be Well Read In The Best Books, And Thoroughly High Bred, Both In Heart And Bearing. In A Word, He Should Be Fit For The Best Society, And Should Keef Out Of It.

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

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!

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.

On The Whole, It Is Patience Which Makes The Final Difference Between Those Who Succeed Or Fail In All Things. All The Greatest People Have It In An Infinite Degree, And Among The Less, The Patient Weak Ones Always Conquer The Impatient Strong.

No False Knight Or Lying Priest Ever Prospered, I Believe, In Any Age, But Certainly Not In The Dark Ones. Men Prospered Then, Only In Following Openly-declared Purposes , And Preaching Candidly Beloved And Trusted Creeds.

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.

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

In Old Times Men Used Their Powers Of Painting To Show The Objects Of Faith, In Later Times They Use The Objects Of Faith To Show Their Powers Of Painting.

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.

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.

Art Is Not A Study Of Positive Reality, It Is The Seeking For Ideal Truth.

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.

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

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?

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.

Though Nature Is Constantly Beautiful, She Does Not Exhibit Her Highest Powers Of Beauty Constantly, For Then They Would Satiate Us And Pall Upon Our Senses. It Is Necessary To Their Appreciation That They Should Be Rarely Shown. Her Finest Touches Are Things Which Must Be Watched For; Her Most Perfect Passages Of Beauty Are The Most Evanescent.

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.

Our Duty Is To Preserve What The Past Has Had To Say For Itself, And To Say For Ourselves What Shall Be True For The Future.

We Require From Buildings Two Kinds Of Goodness: First, The Doing Their Practical Duty Well: Then That They Be Graceful And Pleasing In Doing It.

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

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

Men Don't And Can't Live By Exchanging Articles, But By Producing Them. They Don't Live By Trade, But By Work. Give Up That Foolish And Vain Title Of Trades Unions; And Take That Of Laborers Unions.

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.

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

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

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.

Human Work Must Be Done Honourably And Thoroughly, Because We Are Now Men; Whether We Ever Expect To Be Angels, Or Were Ever Slugs, Being Practically No Matter.

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.

Repose Demands For Its Expression The Implied Capability Of Its Opposite,--energy.

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

Architecture Concerns Itself Only With Those Characters Of An Edifice Which Are Above And Beyond Its Common Use.

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.

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

I Believe The Right Question To Ask, Respecting All Ornament, Is Simply This; Was It Done With Enjoyment, Was The Carver Happy While He Was About It?

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.

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

I Used To Lie Down On The Grass And Draw The Blades As They Grew - Until Every Square Foot Of Meadow, Or Mossy Bank, Became A Possession To Me.

If Men Lived Like Men Indeed, Their Houses Would Be Temples -- Temples Which We Should Hardly Dare To Injure, And In Which It Would Make Us Holy To Be Permitted To Live; And There Must Be A Strange Dissolution Of Natural Affection, A Strange Unthankfulness For All That Homes Have Given And Parents Taught, A Strange Consciousness That We Have Been Unfaithful To Our Fathers Honor, Or That Our Own Lives Are Not Such As Would Make Our Dwellings Sacred To Our Children, When Each Man Would Fain Build To Himself, And Build For The Little Revolution Of His Own Life Only.

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.

It Is Better To Be Nobly Remembered Than Nobly Born.

All Traveling Becomes Dull In Exact Proportion To Its Rapidity.

Of All The Pulpits From Which Human Voice Is Ever Sent Forth, There Is None From Which It Reaches So Far As From The Grave.

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

Modern Travelling Is Not Travelling At All; It Is Merely Being Sent To A Place, And Very Little Different From Becoming A Parcel.

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

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

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.

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

No Day Is Without Its Innocent Hope.

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.

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

The First Duty Of A State Is To See That Every Child Born Therein Shall Be Well Housed, Clothed, Fed And Educated Till It Attains Years Of Discretion.

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

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

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

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.

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

"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."

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

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

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

The Repose Necessary To All Beauty Is Repose, Not Of Inanition, Nor Of Luxury, Nor Of Irresolution, But The Repose Of Magnificent Energy And Being; In Action, The Calmness Of Trust And Determination; In Rest, The Consciousness Of Duty Accomplished And Of Victory Won; And This Repose And This Felicity Can Take Place As Well In The Midst Of Trial And Tempest, As Beside The Waters Of Comfort.

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.

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)

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

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

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

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.

The Fact Of Our Deriving Constant Pleasure From Whatever Is A Type Or Semblance Of Divine Attributes, And From Nothing But That Which Is So, Is The Most Glorious Of All That Can Be Demonstrated Of Human Nature; It Not Only Sets A Great Gulf Of Specific Separation Between Us And The Lower Animals, But It Seems A Promise Of A Communion Ultimately Deep, Close, And Conscious, With The Being Whose Darkened Manifestations We Here Feebly And Unthinkingly Delight In.

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

I Do Not Believe That Ever Any Building Was Truly Great, Unless It Had Mighty Masses, Vigorous And Deep, Of Shadow Mingled With Its Surface.

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.

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

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

We Must Note Carefully What Distinction There Is Between A Healthy And A Diseased Love Of Change; For As It Was In Healthy Love Of Change That The Gothic Architecture Rose, It Was Partly In Consequence Of Diseased Love Of Change That It Was Destroyed.

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

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.

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.

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.

All That Is Good In Art Is The Expression Of One Soul Talking To Another, And Is Precious According To The Greatness Of The Soul That Utters It.

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

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.

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 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.

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

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.

God Will Put Up With A Great Many Things In The Human Heart, But There Is One Thing That He Will Not Put Up With In It--a Second Place. He Who Offers God A Second Place, Offers Him No Place.

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

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.

No Architecture Is So Haughty As That Which Is Simple.

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.

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

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.

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

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'.

Architecture Is The Art Which So Disposes And Adorns The Edifices Raised By Man, That The Sight Of Them May Contribute To His Mental Health, Power, And Pleasure.

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

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.

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.

The First Condition Of Education Is Being Able To Put Someone To Wholesome And Meaningful Work.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

They Are The Weakest-minded And The Hardest-hearted Men That Most Love Change.

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

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.

Science Is The Knowledge Of Constant Things, Not Merely Of Passing Events, And Is Properly Less The Knowledge Of General Laws Than Of Existing Facts.

If 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.

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.

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

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.

Wise Laws And Just Restraints Are To A Noble Nation Not Chains, But Chains Of Mail, -- Strength And Defense, Though Something Of An Incumbrance.

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

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

Genius Is Only A Superior Power Of Seeing.

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

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

Do Not Think It Wasted Time To Submit Yourselves To Any Influence Which May Bring Upon You Any Noble Feeling.

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

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

Give An Earnest-hearted, Devoted Girl Any True Work That Will Make Her Active In The Dawn, And Weary At Night, With The Consciousness That Her Fellow-creatures Have Indeed Been The Better For Her Day, And The Powerless Sorrow Of Her Enthusiasm Will Transform Itself Into A Majesty Of Radiant And Beneficent Peace.

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.

The Constant Duty Of Every Man To His Fellows Is To Ascertain His Own Powers And Special Gifts, And To Strengthen Them For The Help Of Others.

Endurance Is Nobler Than Strength, And Patience Than Beauty.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

There Is No Wealth But Life. Life, Including All Its Powers Of Love, Of Joy, And Of Admiration. That Country Is The Richest Which Nourishes The Greatest Numbers Of Noble And Happy Human Beings; That Man Is Richest, Who, Having Perfected The Functions Of His Own Life To The Utmost, Has Also The Widest Helpful Influence, Both Personal, And By Means Of His Possessions, Over The Lives Of Others.

... 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.

Drawing Is A Means Of Obtaining And Communicating Knowledge

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

Order And System Are Nobler Things Than Power.

See! This Our Fathers Did For Us.

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.

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.

But I Beg You To Observe That There Is A Wide Difference Between Being Captains Or Governors Of Work, And Taking The Profits Of It. It Does Not Follow, Because You Are General Of An Army, That You Are To Take All The Treasure, Or Land, It Wins; (if It Fight For Treasure Or Land); Neither, Because You Are King Of A Nation, That You Are To Consume All The Profits Of The Nation's Work.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

Unless We Perform Divine Service With Every Willing Act Of Our Life, We Never Perform It At All.

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

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

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

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

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.

The Last Act Crowns The Play.

... 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)

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.

The Greatest Efforts Of The Race Have Always Been Traceable To The Love Of Praise, As The Greatest Catastrophes To The Love Of Pleasure.

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.

I Am Almost Sick And Giddy With The Quantity Of Things In My Head, All Tempting And Wanting To Be Worked Out.

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

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.

There Is No Music In A “rest” That I Know Of, But There's The Making Of Music In It. And People Are Always Missing That Part Of The Life Melody.

Some Slaves Are Scoured To Their Work By Whips, Others By Their Restlessness And Ambition.

We Need Examples Of People Who, Leaving Heaven To Decide Whether They Are To Rise In The World, Decide For Themselves That They Will Be Happy In It, And Have Resolved To Seek Not Greater Wealth, But Simpler Pleasure; Not Higher Fortune, But Deeper Felicity; Making The First Of Possessions, Self-possession; And Honouring Themselves In The Harmless Pride And Calm Pursuits Of Peace.

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.

Painting With All Its Technicalities, Difficulties, And Peculiar Ends, Is Nothing But A Noble And Expressive Language, Invaluable As The Vehicle Of Thought, But By Itself Nothing.

A Man Is Known To His Dog By The Smell, To His Tailor By The Coat, To His Friend By The Smile; Each Of These Know Him, But How Little Or How Much Depends On The Dignity Of The Intelligence. That Which Is Truly And Indeed Characteristic Of The Man Is Known Only To God.

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

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.

Morality Does Not Depend On Religion.

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

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?

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.

Hundreds Of People Can Talk For One Who Can Think.

When A Man Is Wrapped Up In Himself, He Makes A Pretty Small Package.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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C. Everett Koop

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