“History is a great painter, with the world for canvas, and life for a figure. It exhibits man in his pride, and nature in her magnificence,--Jerusalem bleeding under the Roman, or Lisbon vanishing in flame and earthquake. History must be splendid. Bacon called it the pomp of business. Its march is in high places, and along the pinnacles and points of great affairs.” MenWorldHistoryFiguresPrideAffairPainterFlamesMarchCanvasSplendidEarthquakesBleedingExhibitsJerusalemMagnificenceVanishingPinnacleHigh Places Author: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 to works of fiction; and Adam Clarke gives a list of tales that won his boyish admiration. Books of entertainment led him to believe in a spiritual world; and he felt sure of having been a coward, but for romances. He declared that he had learned more of his duty to God, his neighbor and himself from Robinson Crusoe than from all the books, except the Bible, that were known to his youth.” WorldGivingBelieveDoeBookSpiritualRomanceFeltFictionKnownVirtueYouthDutyElementsImportanceEntertainmentNeighborListsImpressionTalesAdmirationCowardAdamTestimonyConjectureBoyishRobinson CrusoeDuty To God Book:Pleasures of Literature Source: Pleasures of Literature
“Romance is the truth of imagination and boyhood. Homer's horses clear the world at a bound. The child's eye needs no horizon to its prospect. The oriental tale is not too vast. Pearls dropping from trees are only falling leaves in autumn. The palace that grew up in a night merely awakens a wish to live in it. The impossibilities of fifty years are the commonplaces of five.” WorldNeedsYearsChildrenEyeRomanceNightFallWishImaginationClearFiveTreeGrewGrew UpHorseBoundsTalesFiftyAutumnHorizonPearlsImpossibilityPalacesDroppingCommonplaceBoyhoodFalling Leaves Book:Pleasures,objects and advantages of literature Source: Pleasures,objects and advantages of literature
“Poetry deserves the honor it obtains as the eldest offspring of literature, and the fairest. It is the fruitfulness of many plants growing into one flower and sowing itself over the world in shapes of beauty and color, which differ with the soil that receives and the sun that ripens the seed. In Persia, it comes up the rose of Hafiz; in England, the many-blossomed tree of Shakespeare.” WorldPoetryLiteratureSunGrowingTreeColorFlowerHonorShapesDeserveEnglandRosePlantCome UpSeedsSoilOffspringSowingEldestPersiaFruitfulnessHafizPlants Growing Author: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, opens new worlds, heals diseases, carries on the business of the world. Without it taste is useless, and the beauties of literature unobserved.” WorldScienceLiteratureAttentionFocusDependsGeniusTasteSkillsDiseaseDiscoveryHealUselessBridgesFancyCarrieNew WorldNewton Author:Robert Aris Willmott
“Some gifted adventurer is always sailing round the world of art and science, to bring home costly merchandise from every port.” WorldArtHomeScienceRoundsExplorationGiftedSailingPortArt And ScienceAdventurerMerchandise Book:Pleasures of Literature Source: Pleasures of Literature