19th-century Illustrator Quotes

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Beatrix Potter

Aubrey Beardsley

Edward Lear

John Tenniel

John Gould

Edward Whymper

To have known the man was even as great a treat as to read his books. Lewis Carroll was as unlike any other man as his books were unlike any other author's books. It was a relief to meet the pure simple, innocent dreamer of children, after the selfish commercial mind of most authors.

The wall is silence, the grass is sleep, Tall trees of peace their vigil keep, And the Fairy of Dreams with moth-wings furled. Plays soft on her flute to the drowsy world.

Ida Rentoul Outhwaite

Every sky with its varied tints and every feather of each bird were coloured by hand; and when it is considered that nearly two hundred and eighty thousand illustrations in the present work have been so treated, it will most likely cause some astonishment to those who give the subject a thought.

Corruption is no stranger to Washington; it is a famous resident.

I hope the time will never come when I shall feel satisfied. To reach the goal of one's ambitions must be tragic.

The thing to be wished for, is not that the mountains should become easier, but that men should become wiser and stronger.

There is much wisdom that may be learned before a peat fire.

Ellen Bernard Thompson Pyle

The last hour from midnight had lost half its quarters, and the stars went lifting up the great minutes...

Clemence Housman

There is an implied warranty that a commissioned work should last a lifetime. There is to be no charge.

Maxfield Parrish

I plucked a honeysuckle where The hedge on high is quick with thorn, And climbing for the prize, was torn, And fouled my feet in quag-water; And by the thorns and by the wind The blossom that I took was thinn'd, And yet I found it sweet and fair.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

To marry and have children is the ideal life for a woman. What career could ever be as fine? To give the world splendid men and women-isn't that the noblest thing a woman could possibly do?

Jessie Willcox Smith

Project your mind into your subject until you actually live in it.

A wasp in a wig is altogether beyond the appliances of art.

I think if she lived in A little shoe-house That little old woman was Surely a mouse!

In the present age, alas! our pens are ravished by unlettered authors and unmannered critics, that make a havoc rather than a building, a wilderness rather than a garden. But, a lack! what boots it to drop tears upon the preterit?

Aubrey Beardsley

Child-ren, behold the Chim-pan-zee; He sits on the an-ces-tral tree From which we sprang in ag-es gone. I'm glad we sprang: had we held on, We might, for aught that I can say, Be horrid Chim-pan-zees to-day.

I am in a very unsettled condition, as the oyster said when they poured melted butter all over his back.

To the inhabitants of Warsaw - We wage war only against hostile troops, NOT against peaceful citizens.

Words and Deeds. Cartoon Caption