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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.

-John Ruskin

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The Word "blue" Does

John Ruskin

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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.

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

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.

God Intends No Man To Live In This World Without Working, But It Seems To Me No Less Evident That He Intends Every Man To Be Happy In His Work.

All Art Is But Dirtying The Paper Delicately.

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

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.

... 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)

Nothing Can Be Beautiful Which Is Not True.

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

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

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.

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

The Sculptor Must Paint With His Chisel; Half His Touches Are Not To Realize, But To Put Power Into, The Form. They Are Touches Of Light And Shadow, And Raise A Ridge, Or Sink A Hollow, Not To Represent An Actual Ridge Or Hollow, But To Get A Line Of Light, Or A Spot Of Darkness.

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

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

Production Does Not Consist In Things Laboriously Made, But In Things Serviceably Consumable; And The Question For The Nation Is Not How Much Labour It Employs, But How Much Life It Produces.

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?

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'.

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

It Is Excellent Discipline For An Author To Feel That He Must Say All He Has To Say In The Fewest Possible Words, Or His Reader Is Sure To Skip Them; And In The Plainest Possible Words, Or His Reader Will Certainly Misunderstand Them. Generally, Also, A Downright Fact May Be Told In A Plain Way; And We Want Downright Facts At Present More Than Anything Else.

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.

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?

There's No Music In Rest, But There's The Making Of Music In It. And People Are Always Missing That Part Of The Life Melody, Always Talking Of Perseverance And Courage And Fortitude; But Patience Is The Finest And Worthiest Part Of Fortitude, And The Rarest, Too.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

It Is Advisable That A Person Know At Least Three Things, Where They Are, Where They Are Going, And What They Had Best Do Under The Circumstances.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Cursing Is Invoking The Assistance Of A Spirit To Help You Inflict Suffering. Swearing On The Other Hand, Is Invoking, Only The Witness Of A Spirit To An Statement You Wish To Make.

World Suffering

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.

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

Disorder In A Drawing-room Is Vulgar; In An Antiquary's Study, Not; The Black Battle-stain On A Soldier's Face Is Not Vulgar, But The Dirty Face Of A Housemaid Is.

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

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

Butforme, Thealps And Their Peoplewerealikebeautiful In Their Snow, And Their Humanity; And I Wanted, Neither For Them Nor Myself, Sight Of Any Thrones In Heaven But The Rocks, Or Of Any Spirits In Heaven But The Clouds.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

This Is The True Nature Of Home - It Is The Place Of Peace; The Shelter, Not Only From All Injury, But From All Terror, Doubt, And Division.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

Ignorance, Which Is Contented And Clumsy, Will Produce What Is Imperfect, But Not Offensive. But Ignorance Dis Contented And Dexterous, Learning What It Cannot Understand, And Imitating What It Cannot Enjoy, Produces The Most Loathsome Forms Of Manufacture That Can Disgrace Or Mislead Humanity.

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

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

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

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

One Of The Prevailing Sources Of Misery And Crime Is In The Generally Accepted Assumption, That Because Things Have Been Wrong A Long Time, It Is Impossible They Will Ever Be Right.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

The More Readily We Admit The Possibility Of Our Own Cherished Convictions Being Mixed With Error, The More Vital And Helpful Whatever Is Right In Them Will Become; And No Error Is So Conclusively Fatal As The Idea That God Will Not Allow Us To Err, Though He Has Allowed All Other Men To Do So.

I Do Not Believe That Any Peacock Envies Another Peacock His Tail, Because Every Peacock Is Persuaded That His Own Tail Is The Finest In The World. The Consequence Of This Is That Peacocks Are Peaceable Birds.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

If Some People Really See Angels Where Others See Only Empty Space, Let Them Paint The Angels: Only Let Not Anybody Else Think They Can Paint An Angel Too, On Any Calculated Principles Of The Angelic.

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

The Divine Mind Is As Visible In Its Full Energy Of Operation On Every Lowly Bank And Mouldering Stone As In The Lifting Of The Pillars Of Heaven, And Settling The Foundation Of The Earth.

Better The Rudest Work That Tells A Story Or Records A Fact, Than The Richest Without Meaning.

Give A Little Love To A Child, And You Get A Great Deal Back.

A Man Is Born An Artist As A Hippopotamus Is Born A Hippopotamus; And You Can No More Make Yourself One Than You Can Make Yourself A Giraffe.

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.

All Are To Be Men Of Genius In Their Degree,--rivulets Or Rivers, It Does Not Matter, So That The Souls Be Clear And Pure; Not Dead Walls Encompassing Dead Heaps Of Things, Known And Numbered, But Running Waters In The Sweet Wilderness Of Things Unnumbered And Unknown, Conscious Only Of The Living Banks, On Which They Partly Refresh And Partly Reflect The Flowers, And So Pass On.

There Is A Certain Period Of The Soul-culture When It Begins To Interfere With Some Of Characters Of Typical Beauty Belonging To The Bodily Frame, The Stirring Of The Intellect Wearing Down The Flesh, And The Moral Enthusiasm Burning Its Way Out To Heaven, Through The Emaciation Of The Earthen Vessel; And There Is, In This Indication Of Subduing The Mortal By The Immortal Part, An Ideal Glory Of Perhaps A Purer And Higher Range Than That Of The More Perfect Material Form. We Conceive, I Think, More Nobly Of The Weak Presence Of Paul Than Of, The Fair And Ruddy Countenance Of David.

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

If A Great Thing Can Be Done, It Can Be Done Easily, But This Ease Is Like The Of Ease Of A Tree Blossoming After Long Years Of Gathering Strength.

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.

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.

You Can Only Possess Beauty Through Understanding It.

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

A Book Worth Reading Is Worth Buying.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Flowers Seem Intended For The Solace Of Ordinary Humanity.

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.

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.

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

I Know Well That Happiness Is In Little Things.

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.

Now The Basest Thought Possible Concerning Man Is, That He Has No Spiritual Nature; And The Foolishest Misunderstanding Of Him Possible Is, That He Has, Or Should Have, No Animal Nature. For His Nature Is Nobly Animal, Nobly Spiritual,--coherently And Irrevocably So; Neither Part Of It May, But At Its Peril, Expel, Despise, Or Defy The Other.

Always Stand By Form Against Force.

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.

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

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?

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.

It Is Not How Much One Makes But To What Purpose One Spends.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

No Day Is Without Its Innocent Hope.

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

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

Of All The Things That Oppress Me, This Sense Of The Evil Working Of Nature Herself -my Disgust At Her Barbarity -clumsiness -darkness -bitter Mockery Of Herself -is The Most Desolating.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

No One Can Become Rich By The Efforts Of Only Their Toil, But Only By The Discovery Of Some Method Of Taxing The Labor Of Others.

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

To Yield Reverence To Another, To Hold Ourselves And Our Lives At His Disposal, Is Not Slavery; Often, It Is The Noblest State In Which A Man Can Live In This World.

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

Beauty Deprived Of Its Proper Foils And Adjuncts Ceases To Be Enjoyed As Beauty, Just As Light Deprived Of All Shadows Ceases To Be Enjoyed As Light.

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.

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.

No Architecture Is So Haughty As That Which Is Simple.

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

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.

That Which Seems To Be Wealth May In Verity Be Only The Gilded Index Of Far Reaching Ruin

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.

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.

An Unimaginative Person Can Neither Be Reverent Nor Kind.

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.

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 Plea Of Ignorance Will Never Take Away Our Responsibilities.

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

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.

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.

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

It Is A Good And Safe Rule To Sojourn In Every Place As If You Meant To Spend Your Life There, Never Omitting An Opportunity Of Doing A Kindness, Or Speaking A True Word, Or Making A Friend.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

There Is Large Difference Between Indolent Impatience Of Labor And Intellectual Impatience Of Delay, Large Difference Between Leaving Things Unfinished Because We Have More To Do Or Because We Are Satisfied With What We Have Done.

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

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 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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

The Truth Of Nature Is A Part Of The Truth Of God; To Him Who Does Not Search It Out, Darkness; To Him Who Does, Infinity.

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

Absolute And Entire Ugliness Is Rare.

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

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.

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

Order And System Are Nobler Things Than Power.

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

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

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.

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Hattie McDaniel

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