Aris Quotes

The drama is the book of the people. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

I know I hated magic for a reason," Janco said. "Congratulations. This is the first time you've had a VALID reason to hate something," Ari countered. "Remember your campaign against sand?"
"Sand! Horrid little stuff. Gets everywhere. I had a perfectly good argue
"
"Janco." Ari's voice rumbled deep in his throat.
In a heartbeat, Janco switched gears. "Well, this blood magic sounds worse than sand. ~ Maria V. Snyder

The fame of a battlefield grows with its years; Napoleon storming the Bridge of Lodi, and Wellington surveying the towers of Salamanca, affect us with fainter emotions than Brutus reading in his tent at Philippi, or Richard bearing down with the English chivalry upon the white armies of Saladin. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

Never saw a point in showing up for jury duty. I already know I'm going to vote guilty." Ari's mouth made a tiny O, and she put her hand to her heart. "What about justice?"
"It is justice. Whoever they are, they're guilty of making me show up for jury duty. ~ J.C. Nelson

Of many large volumes the index is the best portion and the usefullest. A glance through the casement gives whatever knowledge of the interior is needful. An epitome is only a book shortened; and as a general rule, the worth increases as the size lessens. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

Don't sweat it, getting shot out of the sky is the thing least likely to kill you today. ~ C.M. Hayden

The sword doesn't change. So you have to adapt to the sword. You can't change your surroundings. They only change once you have changed. ~ Bjørn Aris

Art, not less eloquently than literature, teaches her children to venerate the single eye. Remember Matsys. His representations of miser-life are breathing. A forfeited bond twinkles in the hard smile. But follow him to an altar-piece. His Apostle has caught a stray tint from his usurer. Features of exquisite beauty are seen and loved; but the old nature of avarice frets under the glow of devotion. Pathos staggers on the edge of farce. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

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

I could stand in the middle of Front Street shrieking like a banshee and nobody would notice me. You don't need magic to be invisible in a town like this. Being poor works just the same. So stand behind me and think quiet thoughts. ~ C.M. Hayden

Books, of which the principles are diseased or deformed, must be kept on the shelf of the scholar, as the man of science preserves monsters in glasses. They belong to the study of the mind's morbid anatomy, and ought to be accurately labelled. Voltaire will still be a wit, notwithstanding he is a scoffer; and we may admire the brilliant spots and eyes of the viper, if we acknowledge its venom and call it a reptile. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

Association is the delight of the heart, not less than of poetry. Alison observes that an autumn sunset, with its crimson clouds, glimmering trunks of trees, and wavering tints upon the grass, seems scarcely capable of embellishment. But if in this calm and beautiful glow the chime of a distant bell steal over the fields, the bosom heaves with the sensation that Dante so tenderly describes. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

How deep is the magic of sound may be learned by breaking some sweet verses into prose. The operation has been compared to gathering dew-drops, which shine like jewels upon the flower, but run into water in the hand. The elements remain, but the sparkle is gone. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

Whatever is pure is also simple. It does not keep the eye on itself. The observer forgets the window in the landscape it displays. A fine style gives the view of fancy
its figures, its trees, or its palaces,
without a spot. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

Criticism must never be sharpened into anatomy. The delicate veins of fancy may be traced, and the rich blood that gives bloom and health to the complexion of thought be resolved into its elements. Stop there. The life of the imagination, as of the body, disappears when we pursue it. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

Are you guys done up there?" Aris yelled, still facing the other direction. "Yes!" Teresa called back. "And don't expect me to ever kiss you on the cheek again. I think my lips have a fungus now. ~ James Dashner

Attention makes the genius; all learning, fancy, science and skills depend upon it. Newton traced his discoveries to it. It builds bridges, opens new worlds, heals diseases, carries on the business of the world. Without it taste is useless, and the beauties of literature unobserved. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

Your Majesty, please get down. My friend Aris is really a very good man, and if you fall off that wall he's going to hang for it, and so will his squad, most of whom are also nice men, and though I can't say I really care if your attendants hang, there are probably many people that do care, and would you please, please get down?"
The king looked at him, eyes narrowed. "I don't think I've ever heard you say that many words in a row. You sounded almost articulate. ~ Megan Whalen Turner

It is what it is and it's okay. I'll be okay, you'll be okay, and the world will keep turning. ~ Aris Whittier

Talent only gives an imperfect image--the broken glimmer of a countenance. But the features of Genius remain unruffled. ~ Robert Eldridge Aris Willmott

In literature and art memory is a synonym for invention. It is the life-blood of imagination, which faints and dies when the veins are empty. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

What philosopher of the schoolroom, with the mental dowry of four summers, ever questions the power of the wand that opened the dark eyes of the beautiful princess, or subtracts a single inch from the stride of seven leagues? ~ Robert Aris Willmott

History presents the pleasantest features of poetry and fiction,
the majesty of the epic, the moving accidents of the drama, the surprises and moral of the romance. Wallace is a ruder Hector; Robinson Crusoe is not stranger that Croesus; the Knights of Ashby never burnish the page of Scott with richer lights of lance and armor than the Carthaginians, winding down the Alps, cast upon Livy. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

Some imitation is involuntary and unconscious. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

No canvas absorbs colour like memory. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

We'll be back!" he snarled.
It was really Ari's voice.
Boy, you just can't kill people like you used to," said Fang ~ James Patterson

Romance is the truth of imagination and boyhood. Homer's horses clear the world at a bound. The child's eye needs no horizon to its prospect. The oriental tale is not too vast. Pearls dropping from trees are only falling leaves in autumn. The palace that grew up in a night merely awakens a wish to live in it. The impossibilities of fifty years are the commonplaces of five. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

Many books belong to sunshine, and should be read out of doors. Clover, violets, and hedge roses breathe from their leaves; they are most lovable in cool lanes, along field paths, or upon stiles overhung by hawthorn, while the blackbird pipes, and the nightingale bathes its brown feathers in the twilight copse. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

Taste is often one of the aspects of fashion. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

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

The gloomy recess of an ecclesiastical library is like a harbor, into which a far-traveling curiosity has sailed with its freight, and cast anchor. The ponderous tomes are bales of the mind's merchandise. Odors of distant countries and times steal from the red leaves, the swelling ridges of vellum, and the titles in tarnished gold. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

What's going on?" Newt asked, looking back and forth between Thomas and Aris. "Why're you guys looking at each other like you just fell in love? ~ James Dashner

It is the empiric who never fails. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

Ari!" Jeb had finally seen his son. He rushed to Ari's side and knelt next to him. Looking stunned, he gathered Ari's hulking form and held him to his chest. "I'm so sorry." I saw his mouth shape the words, though I couldn't hear them. "I'm so sorry." He bent over Ari's form, mindless of his vulnerable position. ~ James Patterson

Taste is not stationary. It grows every day, and is improved by cultivation, as a good temper is refined by religion. In its most advanced state it takes the title of judgment. Hume quotes Fontenelle's ingenious distinction between the common watch that tells the hours, and the delicately constructed one that marks the seconds and smallest differences of time. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

Few footprints of the great remain in the sand before the ever-flowing tide. Long ago it washed out Homer's. Curiosity follows him in vain; Greece and Asia perplex us with a rival Stratford-upon-Avon. The rank of Aristophanes is only conjectured from his gift to two poor players in Athens. The age made no sign when Shakespeare, its noblest son, passed away. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

The history of men of science has one peculiar advantage, as it shows the importance of little things in producing great results. Smeaton learned his principle of constructing a lighthouse, by noticing the trunk of a tree to be diminished from a curve to a cyclinder ... and Newton, turning an old box into a water-clock, or the yard of a house into a sundial, are examples of those habits of patient observation which scientific biography attractively recommends. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

Humor is the pensiveness of wit. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

Ari's words felt like drops of sunlight upon my skin, and my frame was burning with longing. ~ Petra March

The discovery of one star is the promise of another. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

I agree!" Aris shouted, much louder than seemed necessary. ~ James Dashner

To study history is to study literature. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

If I could have taken Ari's pain, I would. Pain and scars, however, were the two things everyone carried themselves. ~ J.C. Nelson

It is that faculty by which we discover and enjoy the beautiful, the picturesque, and the sublime in literature, art, and nature; which recognizes a noble thought, as a virtuous mind welcomes a pure sentiment by a involuntary glow of satisfaction. But while the principle of perception is inherent in the soul, it requires a certain amount of knowledge to draw out and direct it. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

The exhibition of real strength is never grotesque. Distortion is the agony of weakness. It is the dislocated mind whose movements are spasmodic. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

Genius finds its own road and carries its own lamp. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

The drama embraces and applies all the beauties and decorations of poetry. The sister arts attend and adorn it. Painting, architecture, and music are her handmaids. The costliest lights of a people's intellect burn at her show. All ages welcome her. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

The ponderous tomes are bales of the mind's merchandise. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

Ari's coming with backup. Should I pretend we barely survived without his help or gloat that we didn't need him at all?"
"Tough decision," I said.
"You can't go wrong with either one," Kade said.
"You guys are no fun. I have to go with the gloating. But no mention of that magic stuff. It ruins the effect." Janco rushed off. ~ Maria V. Snyder

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

One interesting feature of criticism is seen in the ease with which it discovers what Addison called the specific quality of an author. In Livy, it will be the manner of telling the story; in Sallust, personal identification with the character; in Tacitus, the analysis of the deed into its motive. If the same test be applied to painters, it will find the prominent faculty of Correggio to be manifested in harmony of effect; of Poussin, in the sentiment of his landscapes; and of Raffaelle, in the general comprehension of his subject. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

A book becomes a mirror, with the author's face shining over it. Talent only gives an imperfect image,
the broken glimmer of a countenance. But the features of genius remain unruffled. Time guards the shadow. Beauty, the spiritual, Venus,
whose children are the Tassos, the Spensers, the Bacons,
breathes, the magic of her love, and fixes the face forever. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

Winckelmann wished to live with a work of art as a friend. The saying is true of pen and pencil. Fresh lustre shoots from Lycidas in a twentieth perusal. The portraits of Clarendon are mellowed by every year of reflection. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

Joy and grief are never far apart. In the same street the shutters of one house are closed, while the curtains of the next are brushed by shadow of the dance. A wedding-party returns from church, and a funeral winds to its door. The smiles and the sadness of life are the tragi-comedy of Shakespeare. Gladness and sighs brighten and dim the mirror he beholds. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

Talents, to strike the eye of posterity, should be concentrated. Rays, powerless while they are scattered, burn in a point. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

It is supposable that, in the eyes of angels, a struggle down a dark lane and a battle of Leipsic differ in nothing but excess of wickedness. ~ Robert Aris Willmott

Newton found that a star, examined through a glass tarnished by smoke, was diminished into a speck of light. But no smoke ever breathed so thick a mist as envy or detraction. ~ Robert Aris Willmott