Quotes from John Sterling

A man without earnestness is a mournful and perplexing spectacle. But it is a consolation to believe, as we must of such a one, that he is the most effectual and compulsive of all schools.

Man is a substance clad in shadows.

Every man's follies are the caricature resemblances of his wisdom.

There is no lie that a man will not believe; and there is no man who does not believe many lies; and there is no man who believes only lies.

The ideal client is the very wealthy man in very great trouble.

Language. By this we build pyramids, fight battles, ordain and administer laws, shape and teach religion, and knit man to man, cultivate each other, and ourselves.

Knowledge, or more expressively truth,--for knowledge is truth received into our intelligence,--truth is an ideal whole.

Pain has its own noble joy, when it starts a strong consciousness of life, from a stagnant one.

Be busy in trading, receiving, and giving, for life is too good to be wasted in living.

Modern education too often covers the fingers with rings, and at the same time cuts the sinews at the wrist.

Emotion turning back on itself, and not leading on to thought or action, is the element of madness.

He stands in history as the completer of the globe.

Instinct is intelligence incapable of self-consciousness.

The worst education which teaches self-denial, is better than the best which teaches everything else, and not that.

Toil, feel, think, hope; you will be sure to dream enough before you die, without arranging for it.

Instinct is intelligence incapable of self-consciousness.

Of all the tyrants the world affords, our own affections are the fiercest lords.

Colors answer feeling in man; shapes answer thought; and motion answers will.

By all means give us as much truth as possible, even though the dose is ever so bitter... Truth, man! truth is the only true poetry, if the business of poetry is to move the feelings... [B]read and meat... are facts... Bread and truth are all man wants; and a loaf is only an eatable lump of truth fitted for the body, as truth is the invisible, but no less substantial, bread of the spirit.

There can be poetry in the writings of few men; but it ought to be in the hearts and lives of all.

Poetry is in itself strength and joy, whether it be crowned by all mankind, or left alone in its own magic hermitage.

Superstition moulds nature into an arbitrary semblance of the supernatural, and then bows down to the work of its own hands.

The worst education which teaches self-denial, is better than the best which teaches everything else, and not that.

Emotion turning back on itself, and not leading on to thought or action, is the element of madness.