115 quotes
Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless: peacocks and lilies, for instance.
The Stones of Venice (1853)
In painting as in eloquence, the greater your strength, the quieter your manner.
Modern Painters (1843)
Life without industry is guilt, and industry without art is brutality.
Lectures on Art (1870)
When we build, let us think that we build for ever.
The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849)
He who has the truth at his heart need never fear the want of persuasion on his tongue.
The Stones of Venice (1853)
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.
The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849)
In general, pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes.
Modern Painters (1843)
You must either make a tool of the creature, or a man of him.
The Stones of Venice (1853)
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.
Modern Painters (1843)
Multitudes think they like to do evil; yet no man ever really enjoyed doing evil since God made the world.
Without perfect sympathy with the animals around them, no gentleman's education, no Christian education, could be of any possible use.
Of all God's gifts to the sight of man, colour is the holiest, the most divine, the most solemn.
The Stones of Venice (1853)
How false is the conception, how frantic the pursuit, of that treacherous phantom which men call Liberty.
The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849)
You may either win your peace, or buy it:—win it, by resistance to evil;—buy it, by compromise with evil.
The Two Paths (1859)
The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most.
The Stones of Venice (1853)
I never can make out how it is that a knight-errant does not expect to be paid for his trouble, but a peddler-errant always does.
Of human work none but what is bad can be perfect in its own bad way.
The Stones of Venice (1853)
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.
Fors Clavigera (1871)
The work of science is to substitute facts for appearances, and demonstrations for impressions.
The Stones of Venice (1853)
There is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.