“Pliny... makes the statement, and for untrustworthiness of statement he cannot easily be surpassed.”

from Aristotle: a Chapter from the History of Science (1864)

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“Strength of character seldom, if ever, astonishes; goodness, lovingness, and quiet self-sacrifice, are worth all the talents in the world.”

from Rose, Blanche, and Violet​

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“Instead of saying that Man is the creature of Circumstance, it would be nearer the mark to say that Man is the architect of Circumstance. From the same materials one man builds palaces, another hovels, one warehouses, another villas.”

from The Life and Works of Goethe (1855)​

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“The strength of a beam is measured by its weakest part, of a man by his strongest..”

from On Actors and the Art of Acting (1875)

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“Shakespeare is a good raft whereon to float securely down the stream of time; fasten yourself to that and your immortality is safe.”

from On Actors and the Art of Acting (1875)

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“In Science the paramount appeal is to the Intellect — its purpose being instruction; in Art, the paramount appeal is to the Emotions — its purpose being pleasure.”

from The Principles of Success in Literature (1865)

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“Literature is at once the cause and the effect of social progress. It deepens our natural sensibilities, and strengthens by exercise our intellectual capacities.”

from The Principles of Success in Literature (1865)

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“The discoverer and the poet are inventors; and they are so because their mental vision detects the unapparent, unsuspected facts, almost as vividly as ocular vision rests on the apparent and familiar.”

from The Principles of Success in Literature (1865)

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“Philosophy and Art both render the invisible visible by imagination.”

from The Principles of Success in Literature (1865)

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“It is impossible to deny that dishonest men often grow rich and famous, becoming powerful in their parish or in parliament. Their portraits simper from shop windows; and they live and die respected. This success is theirs; yet it is not the success which a noble soul will envy.”

from The Principles of Success in Literature (1865)

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“The history of the race is but that of the individual "writ large."”

from The Foundations of a Creed (1874)

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“No deeply-rooted tendency was ever extirpated by adverse argument. Not having originally been founded on argument, it cannot be destroyed by logic.”

from The Foundations of a Creed (1874)

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“An orator whose purpose is to persuade men must speak the things they wish to hear; an orator, whose purpose is to move men, must also avoid disturbing the emotional effect by any obtrusion of intellectual antagonism; but an author whose purpose is to instruct men, who appeals to the intellect, must be careless of their opinions, and think only of truth.”

from The Principles of Success in Literature (1865)

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“Sincerity is nevertheless the only enduring strength.The principle is universal, stretching from the highest purposes of Literature down to its smallest details. It underlies the labor of the philosopher, the investigator, the moralist, the poet, the novelist, the critic, the historian, and the compiler.”

from The Principles of Success in Literature (1865)

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