Robert Aris Willmott Quotes - Page 2

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• How deep is the magic of sound may be learned by breaking some sweet verses into prose. The operation has been compared to gathering dew-drops, which shine like jewels upon the flower, but run into water in the hand. The elements remain, but the sparkle is gone.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Running, Sweet, Flower

  Robert Aris Willmott (1907). “Pleasures of Literature”

  8 Copy quote

• Poetry deserves the honor it obtains as the eldest offspring of literature, and the fairest. It is the fruitfulness of many plants growing into one flower and sowing itself over the world in shapes of beauty and color, which differ with the soil that receives and the sun that ripens the seed. In Persia, it comes up the rose of Hafiz; in England, the many-blossomed tree of Shakespeare.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Flower, Plants Growing, Color

  4 Copy quote

• Poetical taste is the only magician whose wand is not broken. No hand, except its own, can dissolve the fabric of beauty in which it dwells. Genii, unknown to Arabian fable, wait at the portal. Whatever is most precious from the loom or the mine of fancy is poured at its feet. Love, purified by contemplation, visits and cheers it; unseen musicians are heard in the dark; it is Psyche in the palace of Cupid.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Cheer, Dark, Hands

  Robert Aris Willmott (1866). “Pleasures, Objects, and Advantages of Literature”, p.92

  7 Copy quote

• The ponderous tomes are bales of the mind's merchandise.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Mind, Red Leaves, Merchandise

  Robert Aris Willmott (1907). “Pleasures of Literature”

  23 Copy quote

• Few footprints of the great remain in the sand before the ever-flowing tide. Long ago it washed out Homer's. Curiosity follows him in vain; Greece and Asia perplex us with a rival Stratford-upon-Avon. The rank of Aristophanes is only conjectured from his gift to two poor players in Athens. The age made no sign when Shakespeare, its noblest son, passed away.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Son, Player, Greatness

  7 Copy quote

• Of many large volumes the index is the best portion and the usefullest. A glance through the casement gives whatever knowledge of the interior is needful. An epitome is only a book shortened; and as a general rule, the worth increases as the size lessens.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Book, Giving, Size

  Robert Aris Willmott (1866). “Pleasures, Objects, and Advantages of Literature”, p.119

  7 Copy quote

• The importance of the romantic element does not rest upon conjecture. Pleasing testimonies abound. Hannah More traced her earliest impressions of virtue to works of fiction; and Adam Clarke gives a list of tales that won his boyish admiration. Books of entertainment led him to believe in a spiritual world; and he felt sure of having been a coward, but for romances. He declared that he had learned more of his duty to God, his neighbor and himself from Robinson Crusoe than from all the books, except the Bible, that were known to his youth.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Spiritual, Believe, Book

  Robert Aris Willmott (1907). “Pleasures of Literature”

  4 Copy quote

• Honest fiction may be made to supplement the pulpit.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Fiction, May, Honest

  5 Copy quote

• Occasionally a single anecdote opens a character; biography has its comparative anatomy, and a saying or a sentiment enables the skilful hand to construct the skeleton.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Character, Skeletons, Hands

  Robert Aris Willmott (1858). “Summer Time in the Country”, p.44

  4 Copy quote

• The fame of a battlefield grows with its years; Napoleon storming the Bridge of Lodi, and Wellington surveying the towers of Salamanca, affect us with fainter emotions than Brutus reading in his tent at Philippi, or Richard bearing down with the English chivalry upon the white armies of Saladin.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Reading, Army, Years

  Robert Aris WILLMOTT (1851). “Pleasures,objects and advantages of literature”, p.12

  7 Copy quote

• Association is the delight of the heart, not less than of poetry. Alison observes that an autumn sunset, with its crimson clouds, glimmering trunks of trees, and wavering tints upon the grass, seems scarcely capable of embellishment. But if in this calm and beautiful glow the chime of a distant bell steal over the fields, the bosom heaves with the sensation that Dante so tenderly describes.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Beautiful, Heart, Sunset

  Robert Aris WILLMOTT (1851). “Pleasures,objects and advantages of literature”, p.11

  4 Copy quote

• Winckelmann wished to live with a work of art as a friend. The saying is true of pen and pencil. Fresh lustre shoots from Lycidas in a twentieth perusal. The portraits of Clarendon are mellowed by every year of reflection.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Art, Reflection, Years

  Robert Aris WILLMOTT (1851). “Pleasures,objects and advantages of literature”, p.91

  7 Copy quote

• Art, not less eloquently than literature, teaches her children to venerate the single eye. Remember Matsys. His representations of miser-life are breathing. A forfeited bond twinkles in the hard smile. But follow him to an altar-piece. His Apostle has caught a stray tint from his usurer. Features of exquisite beauty are seen and loved; but the old nature of avarice frets under the glow of devotion. Pathos staggers on the edge of farce.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Art, Children, Eye

  Robert Aris WILLMOTT (1851). “Pleasures,objects and advantages of literature”, p.46

  7 Copy quote

• Genius is nourished from within and without.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Science, Genius

  4 Copy quote

• Education is the apprenticeship of life

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Education, Inspiration, Science

  Robert Aris WILLMOTT (1851). “Pleasures,objects and advantages of literature”, p.22

  4 Copy quote

• Some gifted adventurer is always sailing round the world of art and science, to bring home costly merchandise from every port.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Art, Home, Science

  Robert Aris Willmott (1907). “Pleasures of Literature”

  4 Copy quote

• Attention makes the genius; all learning, fancy, science and skills depend upon it. Newton traced his discoveries to it. It builds bridges, opens new worlds, heals diseases, carries on the business of the world. Without it taste is useless, and the beauties of literature unobserved.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Science, Bridges, Skills

  4 Copy quote

• In literature and art memory is a synonym for invention. It is the life-blood of imagination, which faints and dies when the veins are empty.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Art, Memories, Blood

  4 Copy quote

• Newton found that a star, examined through a glass tarnished by smoke, was diminished into a speck of light. But no smoke ever breathed so thick a mist as envy or detraction.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Stars, Science, Glasses

  Robert Aris Willmott (1907). “Pleasures of Literature”

  4 Copy quote

• Joy and grief are never far apart. In the same street the shutters of one house are closed, while the curtains of the next are brushed by shadow of the dance. A wedding-party returns from church, and a funeral winds to its door. The smiles and the sadness of life are the tragi-comedy of Shakespeare. Gladness and sighs brighten and dim the mirror he beholds.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Party, Grief, Sadness

  Robert Aris Willmott (1907). “Pleasures of Literature”

  7 Copy quote

• The discovery of one star is the promise of another.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Stars, Science, Discovery

  Robert Aris Willmott (1907). “Pleasures of Literature”

  4 Copy quote

• The amplest knowledge has the largest faith. Ignorance is always incredulous. Tell an English cottager that the belfries of Swedish churches are crimson, and his own white steeple furnishes him with a contradiction.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Ignorance, White, Church

  Robert Aris WILLMOTT (1851). “Pleasures,objects and advantages of literature”, p.121

  4 Copy quote

• We waste the power in impatience which, if, otherwise employed, might remedy the evil.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Evil, Might, Waste

  7 Copy quote

• Some imitation is involuntary and unconscious.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Imitation, Involuntary, Unconscious

  Robert Aris Willmott (1907). “Pleasures of Literature”

  4 Copy quote

• Humor is the pensiveness of wit.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Humor, Wit

  4 Copy quote

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