Top 25 Quotes by Robert Aris Willmott of 61 - Page 3

A good reader is nearly as rare as a good writer. People bring their prejudices, whether friendly or adverse. They are lamp and spectacles, lighting and magnifying the page.

A good reader is nearly as rare as a good writer. People bring their prejudices, whether friendly or adverse. They are lamp and spectacles, lighting and magnifying the page.

Robert Aris Willmott

Reading, People, Friendly

Robert Aris WILLMOTT (1851). “Pleasures,objects and advantages of literature”, p.87

A discursive student is almost certain to fall into bad company. Ten minutes with a French novel or a German rationalist have sent a reader away with a fever for life.

Robert Aris Willmott

Fall, Reading, Fever

Robert Aris Willmott (1907). “Pleasures of Literature”

Philosophical studies are beset by one peril, a person easily brings himself to think that he thinks; and a smattering of science encourages conceit. He is above his companions. A hieroglyphic is a spell. The gnostic dogma is cuneiform writing to the million. Moreover, the vain man is generally a doubter. It is Newton who sees himself in a child on the sea shore, and his discoveries in the colored shells.

Robert Aris Willmott

Children, Philosophy, Philosophical

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.

Robert Aris Willmott

Spiritual, Believe, Book

Robert Aris Willmott (1907). “Pleasures of Literature”

Honest fiction may be made to supplement the pulpit.

Robert Aris Willmott

Fiction, May, Honest

The amplest knowledge has the largest faith. Ignorance is always incredulous. Tell an English cottager that the belfries of Swedish churches are crimson, and his own white steeple furnishes him with a contradiction.

Robert Aris Willmott

Ignorance, White, Church

Robert Aris WILLMOTT (1851). “Pleasures,objects and advantages of literature”, p.121

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

Robert Aris Willmott

Evil, Might, Waste

Some imitation is involuntary and unconscious.

Robert Aris Willmott

Imitation, Involuntary, Unconscious

Robert Aris Willmott (1907). “Pleasures of Literature”

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.

Robert Aris Willmott

Pride, Men, Flames