The ponderous tomes are bales of the mind's merchandise. — Robert Aris Willmott Merchandise Copy Share Image
The exhibition of real strength is never grotesque. Distortion is the agony of weakness. It is the dislocated mind whose movements are… — Robert Aris Willmott Agony Copy Share Image
A discursive student is almost certain to fall into bad company. Ten minutes with a French novel or a German rationalist have… — Robert Aris Willmott Bad company Copy Share Image
Of many large volumes the index is the best portion and the usefullest. A glance through the casement gives whatever knowledge of… — Robert Aris Willmott Book Copy Share Image
A good reader is nearly as rare as a good writer. People bring their prejudices, whether friendly or adverse. They are lamp… — Robert Aris Willmott Adverse Copy Share Image
What philosopher of the schoolroom, with the mental dowry of four summers, ever questions the power of the wand that opened the… — Robert Aris Willmott Beautiful Copy Share Image
In literature and art memory is a synonym for invention. It is the life-blood of imagination, which faints and dies when the… — Robert Aris Willmott Art Copy Share Image
Whatever is pure is also simple. It does not keep the eye on itself. The observer forgets the window in the landscape… — Robert Aris Willmott Display Copy Share Image
The fame of a battlefield grows with its years; Napoleon storming the Bridge of Lodi, and Wellington surveying the towers of Salamanca,… — Robert Aris Willmott Army Copy Share Image
History is a great painter, with the world for canvas, and life for a figure. It exhibits man in his pride, and… — Robert Aris Willmott Affair Copy Share Image
Association is the delight of the heart, not less than of poetry. Alison observes that an autumn sunset, with its crimson clouds,… — Robert Aris Willmott Association Copy Share Image
Poetical taste is the only magician whose wand is not broken. No hand, except its own, can dissolve the fabric of beauty… — Robert Aris Willmott Arabian Copy Share Image
It is that faculty by which we discover and enjoy the beautiful, the picturesque, and the sublime in literature, art, and nature;… — Robert Aris Willmott Amount Copy Share Image
History presents the pleasantest features of poetry and fiction,--the majesty of the epic, the moving accidents of the drama, the surprises and… — Robert Aris Willmott Accidents Copy Share Image
Many books belong to sunshine, and should be read out of doors. Clover, violets, and hedge roses breathe from their leaves; they… — Robert Aris Willmott Blackbirds Copy Share Image
Joy and grief are never far apart. In the same street the shutters of one house are closed, while the curtains of… — Robert Aris Willmott Church Copy Share Image
Books, of which the principles are diseased or deformed, must be kept on the shelf of the scholar, as the man of… — Robert Aris Willmott Acknowledge Copy Share Image
A book becomes a mirror, with the author's face shining over it. Talent only gives an imperfect image,--the broken glimmer of a… — Robert Aris Willmott Beauty Copy Share Image
Poetry deserves the honor it obtains as the eldest offspring of literature, and the fairest. It is the fruitfulness of many plants… — Robert Aris Willmott Beauty Copy Share Image
From numberless books the fluttering reader, idle and inconstant, bears away the bloom that only clings to the outer leaf; but genius… — Robert Aris Willmott Bears Copy Share Image
Art, not less eloquently than literature, teaches her children to venerate the single eye. Remember Matsys. His representations of miser-life are breathing.… — Robert Aris Willmott Altars Copy Share Image
Few footprints of the great remain in the sand before the ever-flowing tide. Long ago it washed out Homer's. Curiosity follows him… — Robert Aris Willmott Age Copy Share Image
