Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Without the perfect sympathy with the animals around them, no gentleman's education, no Christian education, could be of any possible use.
Every good piece of art... involves first essentially the evidence of human skill, and the formation of an actually beautiful thing by 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.
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.
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.
Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts - the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art.
It seems a fantastic paradox, but it is nevertheless a most important truth, that no architecture can be truly noble which is not imperfect.
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.
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.
In the utmost solitudes of nature, the existence of hell seems to me as legibly declared by a thousand spiritual utterances as that of heaven.
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.
We are, after all, only trustees of the wealth we possess. Without the community and its resources... there would be little wealth for anyone.
The constant duty of every man to his fellows is to ascertain his own powers and special gifts, and to strengthen them for the help of others.
Science deals exclusively with things as they are in themselves; and art exclusively with things as they affect the human sense and human soul.
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.
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.
As in the instances of alchemy, astrology, witchcraft, and other such popular creeds, political economy, has a plausible idea at the root of it.
Wise laws and just restraints are to a noble nation not chains, but chains of mail, -- strength and defense, though something of an incumbrance.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
We are only advancing in life, whose hearts are getting softer, our blood warmer, our brains quicker, and our spirits entering into living peace.
In the range of inorganic nature. I doubt if any object can be found more perfectly beautiful than a fresh, deep snowdrift, seen under warm light.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
I believe the right question to ask, respecting all ornament, is simply this; was it done with enjoyment, was the carver happy while he was about it?
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.
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.
The first duty of government is to see that people have food, fuel, and clothes. The second, that they have means of moral and intellectual education.
There is nothing that this age, from whatever standpoint we survey it, needs more, physically, intellectually, and morally, than thorough ventilation.
God gives us always strength enough, and sense enough, for what He wants us to do; if we either tire ourselves or puzzle ourselves, it is our own fault.
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.
It is only by labour that thought can be made healthy, and only by thought that labour can be made happy, and the two cannot be separated with impunity.
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.
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.
Failure is less attributable to either insufficiency of means or impatience of labours than to a confused understanding of the thing actually to be done.
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.
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.
In old times men used their powers of painting to show the objects of faith, in later times they use the objects of faith to show their powers of painting.
... the weakest among us has a gift, however seemingly trivial, which is peculiar to him, and which, worthily used, will be a gift also to his race forever.
Whether we force the man's property from him by pinching his stomach, or pinching his fingers, makes some difference anatomically; morally, none whatsoever.
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.
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.
Wherever men are noble, they love bright colour; and wherever they can live healthily, bright colour is given them—in sky, sea, flowers, and living creatures.
The art which we may call generally art of the wayside, as opposed to that which is the business of men's lives, is, in the best sense of the word, Grotesque.