Biography
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Essays by
On familiar style
I conceive that words are like money, not the worse for being common, but that it is the stamp of custom alone that gives them circulation or value.
On the fear of death
To die is only to be as we were before we were born; yet no one feels any remorse, or regret, or repugnance, in contemplating this last idea.
On genius and common sense
In art, in taste, in life, in speech, you decide from feeling, and not from reason.
On going a jouney
The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel, do, just as one pleases.
On the ignorance of the learned
Any one who has passed through the regular gradations of a classical education, and is not made a fool by it, may consider himself as having had a very narrow escape.
The Indian jugglers
A clever or ingenious man is one who can do anything well, whether it is worth doing or not; a great man is one who can do that which when done is of the highest importance.
On living to one’s self
Living to one’s-self is living in the world, as in it, not of it.
On the past and future
We are afraid to dwell upon the past, lest it should retard our future progress; the indulgence of ease is fatal to excellence; and to succeed in life, we lose the ends of being!
On people with one idea
Oh! how little do they know, who have never done anything but repeat after others by rote, the pangs, the labour, the yearnings and misgivings of mind it costs to get at the germ of an original idea.
Of persons one would wish to have seen
I am sometimes, I suspect, a better reporter of the ideas of other people than expounder of my own. I pursue the one too far into paradox or mysticism; the others I am not bound to follow farther than I like, or than seems fair and reasonable.
On the pleasure of painting
Refinement creates beauty everywhere: it is the grossness of the spectator that discovers nothing but grossness in the object.
On thought and action
Those persons who are much accustomed to abstract contemplation are generally unfitted for active pursuits, and vice-versa.
Why distant objects please
Passion is lord of infinite space, and distant objects please because they border on its confines and are moulded by its touch.