Robert Aris Willmott Quotes

Quotes about:

• A first book has some of the sweetness of a first love.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Reading, Book, First Love

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

  45 Copy quote

• Genius finds its own road and carries its own lamp.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Science, Lamps, Genius

  Robert Aris WILLMOTT (1851). “Pleasures,objects and advantages of literature”, p.23

  6 Copy quote

• No canvas absorbs colour like memory.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Memories, Canvas, Colour

  Robert Aris Willmott (1852). “A Journal of Summer Time in the Country”, p.188

  4 Copy quote

• It is the empiric who never fails.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Failure, Failing

  4 Copy quote

• Humor is the pensiveness of wit.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Humor, Wit

  4 Copy quote

• Whatever is beautiful is also profitable.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Beauty, Beautiful, Profitable

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

  11 Copy quote

• To study history is to study literature.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  History, Literature, Study

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

  8 Copy quote

• Taste is improved by cultivation.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Taste, Cultivation

  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

• The advice of a scholar, whose piles of learning were set on fire by imagination, is never to be forgotten. Proportion an hour's reflection to an hour's reading, and so dispirit the book into the student.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Reading, Book, Reflection

  Robert Aris WILLMOTT (1851). “Pleasures,objects and advantages of literature”, p.104

  7 Copy quote

• It is that faculty by which we discover and enjoy the beautiful, the picturesque, and the sublime in literature, art, and nature; which recognizes a noble thought, as a virtuous mind welcomes a pure sentiment by a involuntary glow of satisfaction. But while the principle of perception is inherent in the soul, it requires a certain amount of knowledge to draw out and direct it.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Beautiful, Art, Soul

  7 Copy quote

• Talents, to strike the eye of posterity, should be concentrated. Rays, powerless while they are scattered, burn in a point.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Eye, Rays, Talent

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

  7 Copy quote

• History presents the pleasantest features of poetry and fiction,--the majesty of the epic, the moving accidents of the drama, the surprises and moral of the romance. Wallace is a ruder Hector; Robinson Crusoe is not stranger that Croesus; the Knights of Ashby never burnish the page of Scott with richer lights of lance and armor than the Carthaginians, winding down the Alps, cast upon Livy.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Drama, Moving, Epic

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

  4 Copy quote

• The history of men of science has one peculiar advantage, as it shows the importance of little things in producing great results. Smeaton learned his principle of constructing a lighthouse, by noticing the trunk of a tree to be diminished from a curve to a cyclinder ... and Newton, turning an old box into a water-clock, or the yard of a house into a sundial, are examples of those habits of patient observation which scientific biography attractively recommends.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Science, Men, Curves

  24 Copy quote

• The drama is the book of the people.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Drama, Book, People

  Robert Aris Willmott (1866). “Pleasures, Objects, and Advantages of Literature”, p.87

  7 Copy quote

• A discursive student is almost certain to fall into bad company. Ten minutes with a French novel or a German rationalist have sent a reader away with a fever for life.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Fall, Reading, Fever

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

  7 Copy quote

• Philosophical studies are beset by one peril, a person easily brings himself to think that he thinks; and a smattering of science encourages conceit. He is above his companions. A hieroglyphic is a spell. The gnostic dogma is cuneiform writing to the million. Moreover, the vain man is generally a doubter. It is Newton who sees himself in a child on the sea shore, and his discoveries in the colored shells.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Children, Philosophy, Philosophical

  8 Copy quote

• A good reader is nearly as rare as a good writer. People bring their prejudices, whether friendly or adverse. They are lamp and spectacles, lighting and magnifying the page.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Reading, People, Friendly

  Robert Aris WILLMOTT (1851). “Pleasures,objects and advantages of literature”, p.87

  7 Copy quote

• From numberless books the fluttering reader, idle and inconstant, bears away the bloom that only clings to the outer leaf; but genius has its nectaries, delicate glands, and secrecies of sweetness, and upon these the thoughtful mind must settle in its labor, before the choice perfume of fancy and wisdom is drawn forth.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Reading, Book, Thoughtful

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

  11 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

• One interesting feature of criticism is seen in the ease with which it discovers what Addison called the specific quality of an author. In Livy, it will be the manner of telling the story; in Sallust, personal identification with the character; in Tacitus, the analysis of the deed into its motive. If the same test be applied to painters, it will find the prominent faculty of Correggio to be manifested in harmony of effect; of Poussin, in the sentiment of his landscapes; and of Raffaelle, in the general comprehension of his subject.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Character, Interesting, Quality

  4 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

• The gloomy recess of an ecclesiastical library is like a harbor, into which a far-traveling curiosity has sailed with its freight, and cast anchor. The ponderous tomes are bales of the mind's merchandise. Odors of distant countries and times steal from the red leaves, the swelling ridges of vellum, and the titles in tarnished gold.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Country, Anchors, Curiosity

  4 Copy quote

• Taste is often one of the aspects of fashion.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Fashion, Taste, Aspect

  Robert Aris WILLMOTT (1851). “Pleasures,objects and advantages of literature”, p.73

  9 Copy quote

• Taste is not stationary. It grows every day, and is improved by cultivation, as a good temper is refined by religion. In its most advanced state it takes the title of judgment. Hume quotes Fontenelle's ingenious distinction between the common watch that tells the hours, and the delicately constructed one that marks the seconds and smallest differences of time.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Differences, Taste, Titles

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

  7 Copy quote

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