George Henry Lewes quotes

Science is the systematic classification of experience. (George Henry Lewes)
The only cure for grief is action. View quote
George Henry Lewes
Genius is rarely able to give any account of its own processes. View quote
George Henry Lewes
Many a genius has been slow of growth. Oaks that flourish for a thousand years do not spring up into beauty like a reed. View quote
George Henry Lewes
We must never assume that which is incapable of proof. View quote
George Henry Lewes
Murder, like talent, seems occasionally to run in families. View quote
George Henry Lewes
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. View quote
George Henry Lewes
Originality is independence, not rebellion; it is sincerity, not antagonism. View quote
George Henry Lewes
Insincerity is always weakness; sincerity even in error is strength. View quote
George Henry Lewes
The discoverer and the poet are inventors; and they are so because their mental vision detects the unapparent, unsuspected facts, almost as vividly as ocular vision rests on the apparent and familiar. View quote
George Henry Lewes
The opinion of the majority is not lightly to be rejected; but neither is it to be carelessly echoed. (George Henry Lewes)
Whatever lies beyond the limits of experience, and claims another origin than that of induction and deduction from established data, is illegitimate. View quote
George Henry Lewes
To some men popularity is always suspicious. Enjoying none themselves, they are prone to suspect the validity of those attainments which command it. View quote
George Henry Lewes
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. View quote
George Henry Lewes
Shakespeare is a good raft whereon to float securely down the stream of time; fasten yourself to that and your immortality is safe. View quote
George Henry Lewes
The history of the race is but that of the individual "writ large". View quote
George Henry Lewes
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. View quote
George Henry Lewes
There are many justifications of silence; there can be none of insincerity. View quote
George Henry Lewes
It is always understood as an expression of condemnation when anything in Literature or Art is said to be done for effect; and yet to produce an effect is the aim and end of both. View quote
George Henry Lewes
Personal experience is the basis of all real Literature. View quote
George Henry Lewes
No deeply-rooted tendency was ever extirpated by adverse argument. Not having originally been founded on argument, it cannot be destroyed by logic. (George Henry Lewes)
Remember that every drop of rain that falls bears into the bosom of the earth a quality of beautiful fertility. View quote
George Henry Lewes
An energetic crudity, even a riotous absurdity, has more promise in it than a clever and elegant mediocrity, because it shows that the young man is speaking out of his own heart, and struggling to express himself in his own way rather than in the way he finds in other men's books. The early works of original writers are usually very bad; then succeeds a short interval of imitation in which the influence of some favourite author is distinctly traceable; but this does not last long, the native independence of the mind reasserts itself, and although perhaps academic and critical demands are somewhat disregarded, so that the original writer on account of his very originality receives but slight recognition from the authorities, nevertheless if there is any real power in the voice it soon makes itself felt in the world. View quote
George Henry Lewes
Science is not addressed to poets. View quote
George Henry Lewes
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. View quote
George Henry Lewes