Category: Quote of the Day

The opinion of the majority is not lightly to be rejected; but neither is it to be carelessly echoed.

George Henry Lewes

The only cure for grief is action.

George Henry Lewes

Science is the systematic classification of experience.

George Henry Lewes

Murder, like talent, seems occasionally to run in families.

George Henry Lewes

There are occasions when the simplest and fewest words surpass in effect all the wealth of rhetorical amplification. An example may be seen in the passage which has been a favourite illustration from the days of Longinus to our own. “God said: Let there be light! and there was light.” This is a conception of power so calm and simple that it needs only to be presented in the fewest and the plainest words, and would be confused or weakened by any suggestion of accessories.

George Henry Lewes

An artist produces an effect in virtue of the distinctness with which he sees the objects he represents, seeing them not vaguely as in vanishing apparitions, but steadily, and in their most characteristic relations. To this Vision he adds artistic skill with which to make us see. He may have clear conceptions, yet fail to make them clear to us: in this case he has imagination, but is not an artist. Without clear Vision no skill can avail. Imperfect Vision necessitates imperfect representation; words take the place of ideas.

George Henry Lewes

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

George Henry Lewes

The moral nature of man is more sacred in my eyes than his intellectual nature. I know they cannot be divorced — that without intelligence we should be Brutes — but it is the tendency of our gaping, wondering dispositions to give pre-eminence to those faculties which most astonish us. Strength of character seldom, if ever, astonishes; goodness, lovingness, and quiet self-sacrifice, are worth all the talents in the world.

George Henry Lewes

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.

George Henry Lewes

In the development of the great series of animal organisms, the Nervous System assumes more and more of an imperial character.

George Henry Lewes