40 Quotes by Robert Aris Willmott

Honest fiction may be made to supplement the pulpit.

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.

A cultivated reader of history is domesticated in all families; he dines with Pericles, and sups with Titian.

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.

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.

Taste is often one of the aspects of fashion.

It is supposable that, in the eyes of angels, a struggle down a dark lane and a battle of Leipsic differ in nothing but excess of wickedness.

Genius is nourished from within and without.

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