80 Quotes by Anna Jameson

A good taste in art feels the presence or the absence of merit; a just taste discriminates the degree--the poco piu and the poco meno. A good taste rejects faults; a just taste selects excellences. A good taste is often unconscious; a just taste is always conscious. A good taste may be lowered or spoilt; a just taste can only go on refining more and more.

Talk without truth is the hollow brass; talk without love is like the tinkling cymbal, and when it does not tinkle it jingles, and when it does not jingle, it jars.

Never yet were the feelings and instincts of our nature violated with impunity; never yet was the voice of conscience silenced without retribution.

Even virtue itself, all perfect as it is, requires to be inspirited by passion; for duties are but coldly performed which are but philosophically fulfilled.

Conflict, which rouses up the best and highest powers in some characters, in others not only jars the whole being, but paralyzes the faculties.

Conversation may be compared to a lyre with seven chords-philosophy, art, poetry, love, scandal, and the weather.

If we can still love those who have made us suffer, we love them all the more.

Fame is that which is known to exist by the echo of its footsteps through congenial minds.

... the primitve Christians, by laying so much stress upon a future life in contradiction to this life, and placing the lower creatures out of the pale of sympathy, and thus had the foundation for this utter disregard of animals in the light of our fellow creatures.