Fellows Of The Royal Society

"He was one of the unthanked benefactors of his race, who was patiently teaching and serving mankind, whilst they were shrinking from his coldness, or mocking his peculiarities."

"He was like a deaf mute sitting apart from a circle, whose looks and gestures show that they are uttering and listening to music and eloquence, in producing or welcoming which he can be no sharer. Wisely, therefore, he dwelt apart, and bidding the world farewell, took the self imposed vows of a Scientific Anchorite, and, like the Monks of old, shut himself up within his cell. It was a kingdom sufficient for him, and from its narrow window he saw as much of the Universe as he cared to see. It had a throne also, and from it he dispensed royal gifts to his brethren."

"Cavendish did not stand aloof from other men in a proud or supercilious spirit, refusing to count them his fellows. He felt himself separated from them by a great gulf, which neither they nor he could bridge over, and across which it was vain to stretch hands or exchange greetings. A sense of isolation from his brethren, made him shrink from their society and avoid their presence, but he did so as one conscious of an infirmity, not boasting of an excellence."

"He is more to be wondered at than blamed."

"Manifold subsequent experience has led to a truer appreciation and a more moderate estimate of the importance of the dependence of one living being upon another."

"No naturalist has devoted more painstaking attention to the structure of the barnacles than Mr. Darwin."

"The powers, aspirations, and mission of man are such as to raise the study of his origin and nature, inevitably and by the very necessity of the case, from the mere physiological to the psychological stage of scientific operations."

"I never did approve, when at the Bar, and I do not approve now, when on the Bench, of the practice of not deciding a substantial question when it is fairly raised between the parties and argued, simply because it is raised by demurrer. It is a great benefit to all parties to have the question in the case speedily and cheaply determined, and the practice of demurring ought, if possible, to be encouraged."

"I am not, as I consider, to decide cases in favour of fools or idiots, but in favour of ordinary English people, who understand English when they see it, and are not deceived by any difference in type, but who have before them a very plain statement."

"Mistakes are the inevitable lot of mankind."

"This case reminds me of one in which I likened the plaintiff's case to a colander, because it was so full of holes."

"Professional advice in England is confined to legal advice."

"I may be wrong, and often am, but I never doubt."

"It must not be forgotten that the rules of Courts of equity are not, like the rules of the common law, supposed to have been established from time immemorial. It is perfectly well known that they have been established from time to time — altered, improved, and refined from time to time. In many cases we know the names of the Chancellors who invented them."

"For wide learning and deep insight his judgments are, perhaps, unsurpassed."

"You are never to lose sight of nature; the instant you do, you are all abroad, at the mercy of every gust of fashion, without knowing or seeing the point to which you ought to steer."

"Primus inter pares in this society of humanists stood Reynolds, who as President preferred the gown of the scholar to the toga of the committee-man. His deepest convictions were involved in the theory and history of art, and he quickly revealed himself as the Professor par excellence if not by title. The Discourses delivered ex cathedra to the General Assembly from 2 January 1769 to his last appearance at the distribution of prizes on 10 December 1790 embodied a doctrine and outlined a programme which rank as the classic statement of academic ideals in Europe after three centuries of debate. Their conciliar formulation and openness to new ideas mark a watershed in the history of academic art theory."

"Sir Joshua Reynolds was, on very many accounts, one of the most memorable men of his time. He was the first Englishman who added the praise of the elegant arts to the other glories of his country. In taste, in grace, in facility, in happy invention, and in the richness and harmony of colouring, he was equal to the great masters of the renowned ages. In portrait he went beyond them; for he communicated to that description of the art, in which English artists are the most engaged, a variety, a fancy, and a dignity derived from the higher branches, which even those who professed them in a superior manner did not always preserve when they delineated individual nature. His portraits remind the spectator of the invention of history, and the amenity of landscape. In painting portraits he appeared not to be raised upon that platform, but to descend to it from a higher sphere. His paintings illustrate his lessons, and his lessons seem to be derived from his paintings. He possessed the theory as perfectly as the practice of his art. To be such a painter, he was a profound and penetrating philosopher."

"There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking."

"What is a well-chosen collection of pictures, but walls hung round with thoughts?"

"The true test of all the arts, is not solely whether the production is a true copy of nature, but whether it answers the end of art, which is to produce a pleasing effect upon the mind."

"No Art can be grafted with success on another art. For though they all profess the same origin, and to proceed from the same stock, yet each has its own peculiar modes both of imitating nature, and of deviating from it, each for the accomplishment of its own particular purpose. These deviations, more especially, will not bear transplantation to another soil."

"The art of seeing Nature, or in other words, the art of using Models, is in reality the great object, the point to which all our studies are directed."

"Poetry operates by raising our curiosity, engaging the mind by degrees to take an interest in the event, keeping that event suspended, and surprising at last with an unexpected catastrophe. The painter's art is more confined, and has nothing that corresponds with, or perhaps is equivalent to, this power and advantage of leading the mind on, till attention is totally engaged. What is done by Painting, must be done at one blow; curiosity has received at once all the satisfaction it can ever have."

"What has pleased, and continues to please, is likely to please again: hence are derived the rules of art, and on this immoveable foundation they must ever stand."

"Nature is, and must be the fountain which alone is inexhaustible; and from which all excellencies must originally flow."

"The greatest natural genius cannot subsist on its own stock: he who resolves never to ransack any mind but his own, will be soon reduced, from mere barrenness, to the poorest of all imitations; he will be obliged to imitate himself, and to repeat what he has before often repeated. When we know the subject designed by such men, it will never be difficult to guess what kind of work is to be produced."

"The mind is but a barren soil; a soil which is soon exhausted, and will produce no crop, or only one, unless it be continually fertilized and enriched with foreign matter."

"Genius is supposed to be a power of producing excellencies, which are out of the reach of the rules of art; a power which no precepts can teach, and which no industry can acquire."

"A painter must not only be of necessity an imitator of the works of nature...but he must be as necessarily an imitator of the works of other painters: this appears more humiliating, but is equally true; and no man can be an artist, whatever he may suppose, upon any other terms."

"Words should be employed as the means, not as the end: language is the instrument, conviction is the work."

"As the natural dignity of the subject(of a portrait)is less, the more the ornamental helps are necessary to its embellishments."

"It must be remembered that painting is not the mere gratification of sight."

"A painter must compensate the natural deficiencies of his art. He has but one sentence to utter, but one moment to exhibit. He cannot, like the poet or historian, expatiate."

"If deceiving the eye were the only business of the art, there is no doubt, indeed, but the minute painter would be more apt to succeed; but it is not the eye, it is the mind, which the painter of genius desires to address; nor will he waste a moment upon those smaller objects, which only serve to catch the sense, to divide the attention, and to counteract his great design of speaking to the heart."

"Could we teach taste or genius by rules, they would be no longer taste and genius."

"A mere copier of nature can never produce any thing great, can never raise and enlarge the conceptions, or warm the heart of the spectator."

"You must have no dependence on your own genius. If you have great talents, industry will improve them; if you have but moderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiency."

"Invention, strictly speaking, is little more than a new combination of those images which have been previously gathered and deposited in the memory: nothing can come of nothing."

"Our predecessors, the Druids of Britain, tho' left in the extremest west to the improvement of their own thoughts, yet advanc'd their inquiries, under all disadvantages, to such heights, as should make our moderns asham'd, to wink in the sunshine of learning and religion."

"This mighty wall of four score miles in length is only exceeded by the Chinese wall, which makes a considerable figure upon the terrestrial globe, and may be discerned at the moon."

"He told me, he was just in the same situation [i.e. in a garden], as when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasion'd by the fall of an apple, as he sat in a contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to him self. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the earths centre? Assuredly, the reason is, that the earth draws it. There must be a drawing power in matter."

"Did satisfy myself mighty fair in the truth of the saying that the world do not grow old at all, but is in as good condition in all respects as ever it was."

"We to a little ale-house on the Bankside, over against the Three Cranes, and there stayed till it was dark almost, and saw the fire grow; and, as it grew darker, appeared more and more, and in corners and upon steeples, and between churches and houses, as far as we could see up the hill of the City, in a most horrid malicious bloody flame, not like the fine flame of an ordinary fire. Barbary and her husband away before us. We stayed till, it being darkish, we saw the fire as only one entire arch of fire from this to the other side the bridge, and in a bow up the hill for an arch of above a mile long: it made me weep to see it."

"And so to Mrs. Martin and there did what je voudrais avec her, both devante and backward, which is also muy bon plazer."

"The truth is, I do indulge myself a little the more in pleasure, knowing that this is the proper age of my life to do it; and out of my observation that most men that do thrive in the world, do forget to take pleasure during the time that they are getting their estate, but reserve that till they have got one, and then it is too late for them to enjoy it with any pleasure."

"Musique and women I cannot but give way to, whatever my business is."

"To church in the morning, and there saw a wedding in the church, which I have not seen many a day; and the young people so merry one with another, and strange to see what delight we married people have to see these poor fools decoyed into our condition, every man and woman gazing and smiling at them."

"Strange to see how a good dinner and feasting reconciles everybody."

"This day, much against my will, I did in Drury Lane see two or three houses marked with a red cross upon the doors, and "Lord have mercy upon us" writ there; which was a sad sight to me, being the first of the kind that, to my remembrance, I ever saw. It put me into an ill conception of myself and my smell, so that I was forced to buy some roll-tobacco to smell to and chaw, which took away the apprehension."