George Henry Lewes Quotes

Books minister to our knowledge, to our guidance, and to our delight, by their truth, their uprightness, and their art.

Science is the systematic classification of experience.

Originality is independence, not rebellion; it is sincerity, not antagonism.

No man ever made a great discovery without the exercise of the imagination.

It is unhappily true that much insincere Literature and Art, executed solely with a view to effect, does succeed by deceiving the public.

Insincerity is always weakness; sincerity even in error is strength.

We must never assume that which is incapable of proof.

The true function of philosophy is to educate us in the principles of reasoning and not to put an end to further reasoning by the introduction of fixed conclusions.

To write much, and to write rapidly, are empty boasts. The world desires to know what you have done, and not how you did it.

Roger_Bacon" title="Roger Bacon">Roger Bacon expressed a feeling which afterwards moved many minds, when he said that if he had the power he would burn all the works of the Stagirite, since the study of them was not simply loss of time, but multiplication of ignorance. Yet in spite of this outbreak every page is studded with citations from Aristotle, of whom he everywhere speaks in the highest admiration.

The only cure for grief is action.

Good writers are of necessity rare.

Literature is at once the cause and the effect of social progress.

Many a genius has been slow of growth. Oaks that flourish for a thousand years do not spring up into beauty like a reed.

Our native susceptibilities and acquired tastes determine which of the many qualities in an object shall most impress us, and be most clearly recalled. One man remembers the combustible properties of a substance, which to another is memorable for its polarising property; to one man a stream is so much water-power, to another a rendezvous for lovers.

In complex trains of thought signs are indispensable.

In the air we breathe, in the water we drink, in the earth we tread on, Life is every where. Nature lives: every pore is bursting with Life ; every death is only a new birth, every grave a cradle.

Character is built out of circumstances. From exactly the same materials, one man builds palaces, while another builds hovels.

The delusions of self-love cannot be prevented, but intellectual misconceptions as to the means of achieving success may be corrected.

Endeavour to be faithful, and if there is any beauty in your thought, your style will be beautiful; if there is any real emotion to express, the expression will be moving.

If you feel yourself to be above the mass, speak so as to raise the mass to the height of your argument.

As all Art depends on Vision, so the different kinds of Art depend on the different ways in which minds look at things.

No deeply rooted tendency was ever extirpated by adverse judgment. Not having originally been founded on argument, it cannot be destroyed by logic.

Genius is rarely able to give any account of its own processes.

The air is crowded with birds -- beautiful, tender, intelligent birds -- to whom life is a song.

The real people of genius were resolute workers not idle dreamers.

All good Literature rests primarily on insight.

When a man fails to see the truth of certain generally accepted views, there is no law compelling him to provoke animosity by announcing his dissent.

Heart and Brain are the two lords of life. In the metaphors of ordinary speech and in the stricter language of science, we use these terms to indicate two central powers, from which all motives radiate, to which all influences converge.

In its happiest efforts, translation is but approximation, and its efforts are not often happy. A translation may be good as translation, but it cannot be an adequate reproduction of the original.

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

Imagination is not the exclusive appanage of artists, but belongs in varying degrees to all men.

If I advance new views in Philosophy or Theology, I cannot expect to have many adherents among minds altogether unprepared for such views; yet it is certain that even those who most fiercely oppose me will recognize the power of my voice if it is not a mere echo; and the very novelty will challenge attention, and at last gain adherents if my views have any real insight.

The intensity of vision in the artist and of vividness in his creations are the sole tests of his imaginative power.

Most expositions of Aristotle's doctrines, when they have not been dictated by a spirit of virulent detraction, or unsympathetic indifference, have carefully suppressed all, or nearly all, the absurdities, and only retained what seemed plausible and consistent. But in this procedure their historical significance disappears.

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.

No man was ever eloquent by trying to be eloquent, but only by being so.

Literature delivers tidings of the world within and the world without.

A man may be variously accomplished, and yet be a feeble poet.

Remember that every drop of rain that falls bears into the bosom of the earth a quality of beautiful fertility.

Books have become our dearest companions, yielding exquisite delights and inspiring lofty aims.

To some men popularity is always suspicious. Enjoying none themselves, they are prone to suspect the validity of those attainments which command it.

The separation of Science from Knowledge was effected step by step as the Subjective Method was replaced by the Objective Method: i.e., when in each inquiry the phenomena of external nature ceased to be interpreted on premisses suggested by the analogies of human nature.

It is not true that a man can believe or disbelieve what he will. But it is certain that an active desire to find any proposition true will unconsciously tend to that result by dismissing importunate suggestions which run counter to the belief, and welcoming those which favor it. The psychological law, that we only see what interests us, and only assimilate what is adapted to our condition, causes the mind to select its evidence.

Among the many strange servilities mistaken for pieties, one of the least lovely is that which hopes to flatter God by despising the world, and vilifying human nature.

All bad Literature rests upon imperfect insight, or upon imitation, which may be defined as seeing at second-hand.

A cell is regarded as the true biological atom.

Not only the individual experience slowly acquired, but the accumulated experience of the race, organized in language, condensed in instruments and axioms, and in what may be called the inherited intuitions--these form the multiple unity which is expressed in the abstract term "experience.

The great desire of this age is for a doctrine which may serve to condense our knowledge, guide our researches, and shape our lives, so that conduct may really be the consequence of belief

The public can only be really moved by what is genuine.