115 quotes
We are to remember, in the first place, that the arrangement of colours and lines is an art analogous to the composition of music, and entirely independent of the representation of facts.
The Stones of Venice (1853)
The secret of language is the secret of sympathy and its full charm is possible only to the gentle.
Lectures on Art (1870)
Greater completion marks the progress of art, absolute completion usually its decline.
A little group of wise hearts is better than a wilderness full of fools.
The Crown of Wild Olive (1866)
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.
Engraving is, in brief terms, the Art of Scratch.
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.
Time and Tide (1867)
In old times, men used their powers of painting to show the objects of faith; in later times, they used the objects of faith that they might show their powers of painting.
The Stones of Venice (1853)
I believe that the root of almost every schism and heresy from which the Christian church has ever suffered, has been the effort of men to earn, rather than to receive, their salvation.
Modern Painters (1843)
In general, when the imagination is at all noble, it is irresistible, and therefore those who can at all resist it ought to resist it. Be a plain topographer if you possibly can; if Nature meant you to be anything else, she will force you to it; but never try to be a prophet.
Modern Painters (1843)
Ornamentation is the principal part of architecture, considered as a subject of fine art.
Shadows are in reality, when the sun is shining, the most conspicuous thing in a landscape, next to the highest lights.
No small misery is caused by overworked and unhappy people, in the dark views which they necessarily take up themselves, and force upon others, of work itself.
Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.
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.
The water which has been refused to the cry of the weary and dying is unholy, though it had been blessed by every saint in heaven; and the water which is found in the vessel of mercy is holy, though it had been defiled with corpses.
The King of the Golden River or The Black Brothers: A Legend of Stiria (1841)
My entire delight was in observing without being myself noticed,— if I could have been invisible, all the better.
Human work must be done thoroughly and honourably because we are now men; whether we ever expect to be angels, or ever were slugs, being practically no matter.
Fors Clavigera (1871)
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.
You talk of the scythe of Time, and the tooth of Time: I tell you, Time is scytheless and toothless; it is we who gnaw like the worm — we who smite like the scythe. It is ourselves who abolish — ourselves who consume: we are the mildew, and the flame.
A Joy for Ever (1857)