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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.

-John Ruskin

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The Very Cheapness Of

John Ruskin

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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.

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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.

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

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

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.

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.

So Long As We See The Stones And Joints, And Are Not Deceived As To The Points Of Support In Any Piece Of Architecture, We May Rather Praise Than Regret The Dexterous Artifices Which Compel Us To Feel As If There Were Fibre In Its Shafts And Life In Its Branches.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

The Root Of Almost Every Schism And Heresy From Which The Christian Church Has Suffered, Has Been Because Of The Effort Of Men To Earn, Rather Than Receive Their Salvation; And The Reason Preaching Is So Commonly Ineffective Is, That It Often Calls On People To Work For God Rather Than Letting God Work Through Them.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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

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

"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."

Children See In Their Parents The Past, Their Parents See In Them The Future; And If We Find More Love In The Parents For Their Children Than In Children For Their Parents, This Is Sad But Natural. Who Does Not Entertain His Hopes More Than His Recollections.

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

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

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.

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

Imperfection Is In Some Sort Essential To All That We Know Of Life. It Is The Sign Of Life In A Mortal Body, That Is To Say, Of A State Of Progress And Change. Nothing That Lives Is, Or Can Be Rigidly Perfect; Part Of It Is Decaying, Part Nascent.

Progress And Change

See! This Our Fathers Did For Us.

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

The Whole Difference Between A Man Of Genius And Other Men, It Has Been Said A Thousand Times, And Most Truly, Is That The First Remains In Great Part A Child, Seeing With The Large Eyes Of Children, In Perpetual Wonder, Not Conscious Of Much Knowledge--conscious, Rather Of Infinite Ignorance, And Yet Infinite Power; A Fountain Of Eternal Admiration, Delight, And Creative Force Within Him Meeting The Ocean Of Visible And Governable Things Around Him.

But If, Indeed, There Be A Nobler Life In Us Than In These Strangely Moving Atoms; If, Indeed, There Is An Eternal Difference Between The Fire Which Inhabits Them, And That Which Animates Us,--it Must Be Shown, By Each Of Us In His Appointed Place, Not Merely In The Patience, But In The Activity Of Our Hope, Not Merely By Our Desire, But Our Labor, For The Time When The Dust Of The Generations Of Men Shall Be Confirmed For Foundations Of The Gates Of The City Of God.

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

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

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.

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

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.

It Is Better To Be Nobly Remembered Than Nobly Born.

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

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 Cannot But Think It An Evil Sign Of A People When Their Houses Are Built To Last For One Generation Only.

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

A Splendour Of Miscellaneous Spirits.

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

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.

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

The Greatest Thing A Human Soul Ever Does In This World Is To See Something And Tell What It Saw In A Plain Way. Hundreds Of People Can Talk For One Who Can Think, But Thousands Can Think For One Who Can See. To See Clearly Is Poetry, Prophecy And Religion, All In One.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

No One Can Ask Honestly Or Hopefully To Be Delivered From Temptation Unless He Has Himself Honestly And Firmly Determined To Do The Best He Can To Keep Out Of It.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Men Are More Evanescent Than Pictures, Yet One Sorrows For Lost Friends, And Pictures Are My Friends. I Have None Others. I Am Never Long Enough With Men To Attach Myself To Them; And Whatever Feelings Of Attachment I Have Are To Material Things.

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.

... 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)

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.

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.

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

Why Is One Man Richer Than Another? Because He Is More Industrious, More Persevering And More Sagacious.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

An Architect Should Live As Little In Cities As A Painter. Send Him To Our Hills, And Let Him Study There What Nature Understands By A Buttress, And What By A Dome.

The Plea Of Ignorance Will Never Take Away Our Responsibilities.

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.

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

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

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.

The First Test Of A Truly Great Man Is His Humility. By Humility I Don't Mean Doubt Of His Powers Or Hesitation In Speaking His Opinion, But Merely An Understanding Of The Relationship Of What He Can Say And What He Can Do.

Walk While Ye Have The Light, Lest Darkness Come Upon You.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

When We Build, Let Us Think That We Build Forever. Let It Not Be For Present Delight Nor For Our Use Alone. Let It Be Such Work As Our Descendants Will Look Upon With Praise And Thanksgiving In Their Hearts.

English Artists Are Usually Entirely Ruined By Residence In Italy.

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.

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.

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.

I Have Not Written In Vain If I Have Heretofore Done Anything Towards Diminishing The Reputation Of The Renaissance Landscape Painting.

Landscape Painting

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.

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.

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.

Men Cannot Not Live By Exchanging Articles, But Producing Them. They Live By Work Not Trade.

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

God Shows Us In Himself, Strange As It May Seem, Not Only Authoritative Perfection, But Even The Perfection Of Obedience--an Obedience To His Own Laws; And In The Cumbrous Movement Of Those Unwieldiest Of His Creatures We Are Reminded, Even In His Divine Essence, Of That Attribute Of Uprightness In The Human Creature "that Sweareth To His Own Hurt And Changeth Not.

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

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

Hunger And Thirst

The 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.

Science Has To Do With Facts, Art With Phenomena. To Science, Phenomena Are Of Use Only As They Lead To Facts; And To Art, Facts Are Of Use Only As They Lead To Phenomena.

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.

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)

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.

The Best Thing In Life Aren't Things.

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.

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 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.

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.

Your Honesty Is Not To Be Based Either On Religion Or Policy. Both Your Religion And Policy Must Be Based On It. Your Honesty Must Be Based, As The Sun Is, In Vacant Heaven; Poised, As The Lights In The Firmament, Which Have Rule Over The Day And Over The Night.

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

All Violent Feelings Have The Same Effect. They Produce In Us A Falseness In All Our Impressions Of External Things, Which I Would Generally Characterize As The Pathetic Fallacy.

All Traveling Becomes Dull In Exact Proportion To Its Rapidity.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Men Have Commonly More Pleasure In The Criticism Which Hurts Than In That Which Is Innocuous, And Are More Tolerant Of The Severity Which Breaks Hearts And Ruins Fortunes Than Of That Which Falls Impotently On The Grave.

The Training Which Makes Men Happiest In Themselves ... Also Makes Them Most Serviceable To Others

So Far As I Have Myself Observed, The Distinctive Character Of A Child Is To Live Always In The Tangible Present.

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

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.

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

Absolute And Entire Ugliness Is Rare.

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

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

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

Architecture ... The Adaptation Of Form To Resist Force.

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.

I Do Not Mean To Call An Elephant A Vulgar Animal, But If You Think About Him Carefully, You Will Find That His Nonvulgarity Consists In Such Gentleness As Is Possible To Elephantine Nature-not In His Insensitive Hide, Nor In His Clumsy Foot, But In The Way He Will Lift His Foot If A Child Lies In His Way; And In His Sensitive Trunk, And Still More Sensitive Mind, And Capability Of Pique On Points Of Honor.

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

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

No Amount Of Pay Ever Made A Good Soldier, A Good Teacher, A Good Artist, Or A Good Workman.

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

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

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

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.

He Who Is Not Actively Kind Is Cruel!

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.

In Our Whole Life Melody The Music Is Broken Off Here And There By Rests, And We Foolishly Think We Have Come To The End Of Time. God Sends A Time Of Forced Leisure, A Time Of Sickness And Disappointed Plans, And Makes A Sudden Pause In The Hymns Of Our Lives, And We Lament That Our Voice Must Be Silent And Our Part Missing In The Music Which Ever Goes Up To The Ear Of Our Creator. Not Without Design Does God Write The Music Of Our Lives. Be It Ours To Learn The Time And Not Be Dismayed At The Rests. If We Look Up, God Will Beat The Time For Us.

The World Is Full Of Vulgar Purists, Who Bring Discredit On All Selection By The Silliness Of Their Choice; And This The More, Because The Very Becoming A Purist Is Commonly Indicative Of Some Slight Degree Of Weakness, Readiness To Be Offended, Or Narrowness Of Understanding Of The Ends Of Things.

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.

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 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.

Men Were Not Intended To Work With The Accuracy Of Tools, To Be Precise And Perfect In All Their Actions.

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

He Who Has Learned What Is Commonly Considered The Whole Art Of Painting, That Is, The Art Of Representing Any Natural Object Faithfully, Has As Yet Only Learned The Language By Which His Thoughts Are To Be Expressed.

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.

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

Not Without Design Does God Write The Music Of Our Lives. Be It Ours To Learn The Time, And Not Be Discouraged At The Rests. If We Say Sadly To Ourselves, "there Is No Music In A Rest," Let Us Not Forget " There Is The Making Of Music In It." The Making Of Music Is Often A Slow And Painful Process In This Life. How Patiently God Works To Teach Us! How Long He Waits For Us To Learn The Lesson!

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

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.

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.

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

There Is No Wealth But Life.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Architecture Is The Work Of Nations

You May Sell Your Work, But Not Your Soul.

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.

No Architecture Is So Haughty As That Which Is Simple.

Modern Science Gives Lectures On Botany, To Show There Is No Such Thing As A Flower; On Humanity, To Show There Is No Such Thing As A Man; And On Theology, To Show There Is No Such Thing As A God. No Such Thing As A Man, But Only A Mechanism, No Such Thing As A God, But Only A Series Of Forces.

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.

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

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

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 Essence Of Lying Is In Deception, Not In Words.

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

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

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

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