table is the only place where we do not get weary during the first hour. —Brillat Savarin.
Appreciation.– Contemporaries appreciate the man rather than the merit; but posterity will regard the merit rather than the man. —Colton.
It so falls out that what we have we prize not to the worth while we enjoy it; but being lacked and lost, why, then we rack the value. —Shakespeare.
A man is known to his dog by the smell – to the 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 man is known only to God. —Ruskin.
He who seems not to himself more than he is, is more than he seems. —Goethe.
Light is above us, and color surrounds us; but if we have not light and color in our eyes, we shall not perceive them outside us. —Goethe.
When a nation gives birth to a man who is able to produce a great thought, another is born who is able to understand and admire it. —Joubert.
No story is the same to us after a lapse of time; or rather we who read it are no longer the same interpreters. —George Eliot.
Next to invention is the power of interpreting invention; next to beauty the power of appreciating beauty. —Margaret Fuller.
You will find poetry nowhere unless you bring some with you. —Joubert.
Architecture.– Architecture is the art which so disposes and adorns the edifices raised by man, for whatsoever uses, that the sight of them may contribute to his mental health, power, and pleasure. —Ruskin.
Argument.– There is no arguing with Johnson; for if his pistol misses fire he knocks you down with the butt end of it. —Goldsmith.
Weak arguments are often thrust before my path; but although they are most unsubstantial, it is not easy to destroy them. There is not a more difficult feat known than to cut through a cushion with a sword. —Bishop Whately.
Treating your adversary with respect is giving him an advantage to which he is not entitled. The greatest part of men cannot judge of reasoning, and are impressed by character; so that if you allow your adversary a respectable character, they will think that, though you differ from him, you may be in the wrong. Treating your adversary with respect is striking soft in a battle. —Johnson.
The soundest argument will produce no more conviction in an empty head than the most superficial declamation; as a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity in a vacuum. —Colton.
An ill argument introduced with deference will procure more credit than the profoundest science with a rough, insolent, and noisy management. —Locke.
One may say, generally, that no deeply rooted tendency was ever extirpated by adverse argument. Not having originally been founded on argument, it cannot be destroyed by logic. —G. H. Lewes.
A reason is often good, not because it is conclusive, but because it is dramatic, – because it has the stamp of him who urges it, and is drawn from his own resources. For there are arguments ex homine as well as ad hominem. —Joubert.
If I were to deliver up my whole self to the arbitrament of special pleaders, to-day I might be argued into an atheist, and to-morrow into a pickpocket. —Bulwer-Lytton.
Aristocracy.– And lords, whose parents were the Lord knows who. —De Foe.
What can they see in the longest kingly line in Europe, save that it runs back to a successful soldier? —Walter Scott.
If in an aristocracy the people be virtuous, they will enjoy very nearly the same happiness as in a popular government, and the state will become powerful. —Montesquieu.
An aristocracy is the true, the only support of a monarchy. Without it the State is a vessel without a rudder – a balloon in the air. A true aristocracy, however, must be ancient. Therein consists its real force, – its talismanic charm. —Napoleon.
I never could believe that Providence had sent a few men into the world, ready booted and spurred to ride, and millions ready saddled and bridled to be ridden. —Richard Rumbold.
Armor.– The best armor is to keep out of gunshot. —Lord Bacon.
Our armor all is strong, our cause the best; then reason wills our hearts should be as good. —Shakespeare.
Art.– Rules may teach us not to raise the arms above the head; but if passion carries them, it will be well done: passion knows more than art. —Baron.
It is a great mortification to the vanity of man that his utmost art and industry can never equal the meanest of nature's productions, either for beauty or value. Art is only the underworkman, and is employed to give a few strokes of embellishment to those pieces which come from the hand of the master. —Hume.
The mission of art is to represent nature; not to imitate her. —W. M. Hunt.
True art is not the caprice of this or that individual, it is a solemn page either of history or prophecy; and when, as always in Dante and occasionally in Byron, it combines and harmonizes this double mission, it reaches the highest summit of power. —Mazzini.
Art is the right hand of Nature. The latter has only given us being, the former has made us men. —Schiller.
Art does not imitate nature, but it founds itself on the study of nature – takes from nature the selections which best accord with its own intention, and then bestows on them that which nature does not possess, namely, the mind and the soul of man. —Bulwer-Lytton.
The mother of useful arts is necessity; that of the fine arts is luxury. —Schopenhaufer.
He who seeks popularity in art closes the door on his own genius, as he must needs paint for other minds and not for his own. —Washington Allston.
In art, form is everything; matter, nothing. —Heinrich Heine.
Strange thing art, especially music. Out of an art a man may be so trivial you would mistake him for an imbecile, at best a grown infant. Put him into his art, and how high he soars above you! How quietly he enters into a heaven of which he has become a denizen, and, unlocking the gates with his golden key, admits you to follow, an humble, reverent visitor. —Bulwer-Lytton.
Art does not imitate, but interpret. —Mazzini.
The artist is the child in the popular fable, every one of whose tears was a pearl. Ah! the world, that cruel step-mother, beats the poor child the harder to make him shed more pearls. —Heinrich Heine.
In art there is a point of perfection, as of goodness or maturity in nature; he who is able to perceive it, and who loves it, has perfect taste; he who does not feel it, or loves on this side or that, has an imperfect taste. —Bruyère.
Never judge a work of art by its defects. —Washington Allston.
Asceticism.– I recommend no sour ascetic life. I believe not
