Robert Aris Willmott

To study history is to study literature.

— Robert Aris Willmott

Humor is the pensiveness of wit.

— Robert Aris Willmott

Genius is nourished from within and without.

— Robert Aris Willmott

The drama is the book of the people.

— Robert Aris Willmott

Genius finds its own road and carries its own lamp.

— Robert Aris Willmott

The discovery of one star is the promise of another.

— Robert Aris Willmott

It is the empiric who never fails.

— Robert Aris Willmott

Taste is often one of the aspects of fashion.

— Robert Aris Willmott

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

— Robert Aris Willmott

Talents, to strike the eye of posterity, should be concentrated. Rays, powerless while they are scattered, burn in a point.

— Robert Aris Willmott

Every fresh acquirement is another remedy against affliction and time.

— Robert Aris Willmott

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

— Robert Aris Willmott

We waste the power in impatience which, if, otherwise employed, might remedy the evil.

— Robert Aris Willmott

The light of genius never sets, but sheds itself upon other faces, in different hues of splendor. Homer glows in the softened…

— Robert Aris Willmott

Newton found that a star, examined through a glass tarnished by smoke, was diminished into a speck of light. But no smoke…

— Robert Aris Willmott

The advice of a scholar, whose piles of learning were set on fire by imagination, is never to be forgotten. Proportion an…

— Robert Aris Willmott

The amplest knowledge has the largest faith. Ignorance is always incredulous. Tell an English cottager that the belfries of Swedish churches are…

— Robert Aris Willmott

The drama embraces and applies all the beauties and decorations of poetry. The sister arts attend and adorn it. Painting, architecture, and…

— Robert Aris Willmott

Occasionally a single anecdote opens a character; biography has its comparative anatomy, and a saying or a sentiment enables the skilful hand…

— Robert Aris Willmott

Winckelmann wished to live with a work of art as a friend. The saying is true of pen and pencil. Fresh lustre…

— Robert Aris Willmott

It is supposable that, in the eyes of angels, a struggle down a dark lane and a battle of Leipsic differ in…

— Robert Aris Willmott

Attention makes the genius; all learning, fancy, science and skills depend upon it. Newton traced his discoveries to it. It builds bridges,…

— Robert Aris Willmott

Taste is not stationary. It grows every day, and is improved by cultivation, as a good temper is refined by religion. In…

— Robert Aris Willmott

Romance is the truth of imagination and boyhood. Homer's horses clear the world at a bound. The child's eye needs no horizon…

— Robert Aris Willmott

Philosophical studies are beset by one peril, a person easily brings himself to think that he thinks; and a smattering of science…

— Robert Aris Willmott

Criticism must never be sharpened into anatomy. The delicate veins of fancy may be traced, and the rich blood that gives bloom…

— Robert Aris Willmott

The history of men of science has one peculiar advantage, as it shows the importance of little things in producing great results.…

— Robert Aris Willmott

How deep is the magic of sound may be learned by breaking some sweet verses into prose. The operation has been compared…

— Robert Aris Willmott

The gloomy recess of an ecclesiastical library is like a harbor, into which a far-traveling curiosity has sailed with its freight, and…

— Robert Aris Willmott

One interesting feature of criticism is seen in the ease with which it discovers what Addison called the specific quality of an…

— Robert Aris Willmott

The importance of the romantic element does not rest upon conjecture. Pleasing testimonies abound. Hannah More traced her earliest impressions of virtue…

— Robert Aris Willmott

A first book has some of the sweetness of a first love.

— Robert Aris Willmott

Education is the apprenticeship of life

— Robert Aris Willmott

No canvas absorbs color like memory.

— Robert Aris Willmott

Some imitation is involuntary and unconscious.

— Robert Aris Willmott

Honest fiction may be made to supplement the pulpit.

— Robert Aris Willmott

It is only dislocated minds whose movements are spasmodic.

— Robert Aris Willmott

No canvas absorbs colour like memory.

— Robert Aris Willmott

Whatever is beautiful is also profitable.

— Robert Aris Willmott

Taste is improved by cultivation.

— Robert Aris Willmott