54 quotes
Many a genius has been slow of growth. Oaks that flourish for a thousand years do not spring up into beauty like a reed.
The Spanish Drama (1846)
The history of the race is but that of the individual "writ large".
The Foundations of a Creed (1874)
Among the many strange servilities mistaken for pieties, one of the least lovely is that which hopes to flatter God by despising the world, and vilifying human nature.
The Foundations of a Creed (1874)
We must never assume that which is incapable of proof.
The moral nature of man is more sacred in my eyes than his intellectual nature.
He sees the danger, and feels not the power that is to overcome it.
The Spanish Drama (1846)
Murder, like talent, seems occasionally to run in families.
Shakespeare is a good raft whereon to float securely down the stream of time; fasten yourself to that and your immortality is safe.
There are occasions when the simplest and fewest words surpass in effect all the wealth of rhetorical amplification.
The Principles of Success in Literature (1865)
In the development of the great series of animal organisms, the Nervous System assumes more and more of an imperial character.
The Principles of Success in Literature (1865)
Genius is rarely able to give any account of its own processes.
The Principles of Success in Literature (1865)
The great desire of this age is for a Doctrine which may serve to condense our knowledge, guide our researches, and shape our lives, so that Conduct may really be the consequence of Belief.
The Foundations of a Creed (1874)
In Science the paramount appeal is to the Intellect — its purpose being instruction; in Art, the paramount appeal is to the Emotions — its purpose being pleasure.
The Principles of Success in Literature (1865)
To some men popularity is always suspicious. Enjoying none themselves, they are prone to suspect the validity of those attainments which command it.
The Spanish Drama (1846)
There are many justifications of silence; there can be none of insincerity.
The Principles of Success in Literature (1865)
Science is the systematic classification of experience.
Whatever lies beyond the limits of experience, and claims another origin than that of induction and deduction from established data, is illegitimate.
The Foundations of a Creed (1874)
Philosophy and Art both render the invisible visible by imagination.
The Principles of Success in Literature (1865)
And to some men popularity is always suspicious. Enjoying none themselves, they are prone to suspect the validity of those attainments which command it.
The Spanish Drama (1846)
A work is imaginative in virtue of the power of its images over our emotions; not in virtue of any rarity or surprisingness in the images themselves.
The Principles of Success in Literature (1865)