Background Image

...

We Are Foolish, And Without Excuse Foolish, In Speaking Of The Superiority Of One Sex To The Other, As If They Could Be Compared In Similar Things! Each Has What The Other Has Not; Each Completes The Other; They Are In Nothing Alike And The Happiness And Perfection Of Both Depend On Each Asking And Receiving From The Other What The Other Only Can Give.

-John Ruskin

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

We Are Foolish, And

John Ruskin

...

We Are Foolish, And Without Excuse Foolish, In Speaking Of The Superiority Of One Sex To The Other, As If They Could Be Compared In Similar Things! Each Has What The Other Has Not; Each Completes The Other; They Are In Nothing Alike And The Happiness And Perfection Of Both Depend On Each Asking And Receiving From The Other What The Other Only Can Give.

Views: 50255

Topic

More From John Ruskin

Say All You Have To Say In The Fewest Possible Words, Or Your Reader Will Be Sure To Skip Them; And In The Plainest Possible Words Or He Will Certainly Misunderstand Them.

He Who Is Not Actively Kind Is Cruel!

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

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

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.

... 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)

Genius Is Only A Superior Power Of Seeing.

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

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.

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.

You May Chisel A Boy Into Shape, As You Would A Rock, Or Hammer Him Into It, If He Be Of A Better Kind, As You Would A Piece Of Bronze. But You Cannot Hammer A Girl Into Anything. She Grows As A Flower Does.

Of All The Affected, Sapless, Soulless, Beginningless, Endless, Topless, Bottomless, Topsiturviest, Scrannel- Pipiest, Tongs And Boniest Doggerel Of Sounds I Ever Endured The Deadliest Of, That Eternityof Nothing Wasthe Deadliest.

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

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.

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.

One Who Does Not Know When To Die, Does Not Know How To Live.

When Love And Skill Work Together, Expect A Masterpiece.

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.

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.

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

When I Have Been Unhappy, I Have Heard An Opera... And It Seemed The Shrieking Of Winds; When I Am Happy, A Sparrow's Chirp Is Delicious To Me. But It Is Not The Chirp That Makes Me Happy, But I That Make It Sweet.

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.

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

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 Was A Rocky Valley Between Buxton And Bakewell?divine As The Vale Of Tempe; You Might Have Seen The Gods There Morning And Eveningapollo And The Sweet Muses Of The Light? You Enterprised A Railroad?you Blasted Its Rocks Away? And, Now, Every Fool In Buxton Can Be At Bakewell In Half-an-hour, And Every Fool In Bakewell At Buxton.

No Human Face Is Exactly The Same In Its Lines On Each Side, No Leaf Perfect In Its Lobes, No Branch In Its Symmetry. All Admit Irregularity As They Imply Change; And To Banish Imperfection Is To Destroy Expression, To Check Exertion, To Paralyze Vitality. 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.

The Greatest Reward Is Not What We Receive For Our Labor, But What We Become By It.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

What Does Cookery Mean? It Means The Knowledge Of Medea And Of Circe, And Of Calypso, And Sheba. It Means Knowledge Of All Herbs, And Fruits, And Balms And Spices... It Means The Economy Of Your Great-grandmother And The Science Of Modern Chemistry, And French Art, And Arabian Hospitality. It Means, In Fine, That You Are To See Imperatively That Everyone Has Something Nice To Eat.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Drawing Is A Means Of Obtaining And Communicating Knowledge

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

We Have Much Studied And Much Perfected, Of Late, The Great Civilized Invention Of The Division Of Labour; Only We Give It A False Name. It Is Not, Truly Speaking, The Labour That Is Divided; But The Men.

Remember That The Most Beautiful Things In The World Are The Most Useless; Peacocks And Lilies For Instance.

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.

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

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

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

Work First, And Then Rest.

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.

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.

He Thinks By Infection, Catching An Opinion Like A Cold.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

It Is Better To Be Nobly Remembered Than Nobly Born.

That Country Is The Richest Which Nourishes The Greatest Number Of Noble And Happy Human Beings.

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

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 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

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.

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

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

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

Every Increased Possession Loads Us With A New Weariness.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

An Unimaginative Person Can Neither Be Reverent Nor Kind.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Cookery Means…english Thoroughness, French Art, And Arabian Hospitality; It Means The Knowledge Of All Fruits And Herbs And Balms And Spices; It Means Carefulness, Inventiveness, And Watchfulness.

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.

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

Perfection And Imperfection

All True Opinions Are Living, And Show Their Life By Being Capable Of Nourishment; Therefore Of Change. But Their Change Is That Of A Tree Not Of A Cloud.

Whereas It Has Long Been Known And Declared That The Poor Have No Right To The Property Of The Rich, I Wish It Also To Be Known And Declared That The Rich Have No Right To The Property Of The Poor.

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.

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

I Have Seen, And Heard, Much Of Cockney Impudence Before Now; But Never Expected To Hear A Coxcomb Ask Two Hundred Guineas For Flinging A Pot Of Paint In The Public's Face.

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

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

Nothing Can Be Beautiful Which Is Not True.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Hundreds Of People Can Talk For One Who Can Think.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

Depend Upon It, The First Universal Characteristic Of All Great Art Is Tenderness, As The Second Is Truth. I Find This More And More Every Day: An Infinitude Of Tenderness Is The Chief Gift And Inheritance Of All The Truly Great Men. It Is Sure To Involve A Relative Intensity Of Disdain Towards Base Things, And An Appearance Of Sternness And Arrogance In The Eyes Of All Hard, Stupid, And Vulgar People

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)

Morality Does Not Depend On Religion.

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.

It Is Far More Difficult To Be Simple Than To Be Complicated; Far More Difficult To Sacrifice Skill And Easy Execution In The Proper Place, Than To Expand Both Indiscriminately.

Science Deals Exclusively With Things As They Are In Themselves.

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

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

He Only Is Advancing In Life Whose Heart Is Getting Softer, Whose Blood Warmer, Whose Brain Quicker, Whose Spirit Is Entering Into Living Peace. And The Men Who Have This Life In Them Are The True Lords Or Kings Of The Earth They, And They Only.

In Great Countries, Children Are Always Trying To Remain Children, And The Parents Want To Make Them Into Adults. In Vile Countries, The Children Are Always Wanting To Be Adults And The Parents Want To Keep Them Children.

We Are Foolish, And Without Excuse Foolish, In Speaking Of The Superiority Of One Sex To The Other, As If They Could Be Compared In Similar Things! Each Has What The Other Has Not; Each Completes The Other; They Are In Nothing Alike And The Happiness And Perfection Of Both Depend On Each Asking And Receiving From The Other What The Other Only Can Give.

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.

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.

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.

To Know Anything Well Involves A Profound Sensation Of Ignorance.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

It Is Strange That Of All The Pieces Of The Bible Which My Mother Taught Me, That Which Cost Me The Most To Learn, And Which Was To My Childish Mind The Most Repulsive - Psalm 119 - Has Now Become Of All The Most Precious To Me In Its Overflowing And Glorious Passion Of Love For The Law Of God.

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.

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

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.

All Art Is But Dirtying The Paper Delicately.

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.

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

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

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!

God Is A Kind Father. He Sets Us All In The Places Where He Wishes Us To Be Employed. He Chooses Work For Every Creature Which Will Be Delightful To Them If They Do It Simply And Humbly. He Gives Us Always Strength Enough And Sense Enough For What He Wants Us To Do.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

To Watch The Corn Grow, And The Blossoms Set; To Draw Hard Breath Over Ploughshare Or Spade; To Read, To Think, To Love, To Hope, To Pray, — These Are The Things That Make Men Happy.

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.

All Traveling Becomes Dull In Exact Proportion To Its Rapidity.

All Men Who Have Sense And Feeling Are Being Continually Helped; They Are Taught By Every Person They Meet, And Enriched By Everything That Falls In Their Way. The Greatest, Is He Who Has Been Oftenest Aided. Originality Is The Observing Eye.

Variety Is A Positive Requisite Even In The Character Of Our Food.

There Is No Climate, No Place, And Scarcely An Hour, In Which Nature Does Not Exhibit Color Which No Mortal Effort Can Imitate Or Approach. For All Our Artificial Pigments Are, Even When Seen Under The Same Circumstances, Dead And Lightless Beside Her Living Color; Nature Exhibits Her Hues Under An Intensity Of Sunlight Which Trebles Their Brilliancy.

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.

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.

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

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'.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

When God Shuts A Door, He Opens A Window.

A Book Worth Reading Is Worth Buying.

There Are Many Religions, But There Is Only One Morality.

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

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.

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.

Remember Always, In Painting As In Eloquence, The Greater Your Strength, The Quieter Will Be Your Manner, And The Fewer Your Words; And In Painting, As In All The Arts And Acts Of Life The Secret Of High Success Will Be Found, Not In A Fretful And Various Excellence, But In A Quiet Singleness Of Justly Chosen Aim.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Trending Author

Anna Julia Cooper

Christopher Marlowe

Category