Robert Aris Willmott Quotes

Quotes about:

Art Books Children Drama Eyes Genius Giving

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”

44 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

3 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

5 Copy quote
It is the empiric who never fails.

Robert Aris Willmott

Failure, Failing

3 Copy quote
Whatever is beautiful is also profitable.

Robert Aris Willmott

Beauty, Beautiful, Profitable

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

10 Copy quote
Taste is improved by cultivation.

Robert Aris Willmott

Taste, Cultivation

6 Copy quote
To study history is to study literature.

Robert Aris Willmott

History, Literature, Study

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

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

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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

6 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”

3 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

23 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

6 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

3 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

6 Copy quote
A book becomes a mirror, with the author's face shining over it. Talent only gives an imperfect image,--the broken glimmer of a countenance. But the features of genius remain unruffled. Time guards the shadow. Beauty, the spiritual, Venus,--whose children are the Tassos, the Spensers, the Bacons,--breathes, the magic of her love, and fixes the face forever.

Robert Aris Willmott

Spiritual, Children, Book

3 Copy quote
Books, of which the principles are diseased or deformed, must be kept on the shelf of the scholar, as the man of science preserves monsters in glasses. They belong to the study of the mind's morbid anatomy, and ought to be accurately labelled. Voltaire will still be a wit, notwithstanding he is a scoffer; and we may admire the brilliant spots and eyes of the viper, if we acknowledge its venom and call it a reptile.

Robert Aris Willmott

Book, Eye, Men

3 Copy quote
Many books belong to sunshine, and should be read out of doors. Clover, violets, and hedge roses breathe from their leaves; they are most lovable in cool lanes, along field paths, or upon stiles overhung by hawthorn, while the blackbird pipes, and the nightingale bathes its brown feathers in the twilight copse.

Robert Aris Willmott

Book, Twilight, Sunshine

Robert Aris WILLMOTT (1851). “Pleasures,objects and advantages of literature”, p.99

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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”

10 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

6 Copy quote
What philosopher of the schoolroom, with the mental dowry of four summers, ever questions the power of the wand that opened the dark eyes of the beautiful princess, or subtracts a single inch from the stride of seven leagues?

Robert Aris Willmott

Beautiful, Summer, Princess

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

53 Copy quote
Criticism must never be sharpened into anatomy. The delicate veins of fancy may be traced, and the rich blood that gives bloom and health to the complexion of thought be resolved into its elements. Stop there. The life of the imagination, as of the body, disappears when we pursue it.

Robert Aris Willmott

Blood, Imagination, Giving

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

3 Copy quote
Romance is the truth of imagination and boyhood. Homer's horses clear the world at a bound. The child's eye needs no horizon to its prospect. The oriental tale is not too vast. Pearls dropping from trees are only falling leaves in autumn. The palace that grew up in a night merely awakens a wish to live in it. The impossibilities of fifty years are the commonplaces of five.

Robert Aris Willmott

Horse, Children, Fall

Robert Aris WILLMOTT (1851). “Pleasures,objects and advantages of literature”, p.60

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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

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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

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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

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Robert Aris Willmott

Born: 1809
Died: 1863
Occupation: Author
Cite this Page: Citation

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