Taylor

“As to the tragic paintings by which Mr. Burke has outraged his own imagination, and seeks to work upon that of his readers, they are very well calculated for theatrical representation, where facts are manufactured for the sake of show, and accommodated to produce, through the weakness of sympathy, a weeping effect. But Mr. Burke should recollect that he is writing history, and not plays, and that his readers will expect truth, and not the spouting rant of high-toned exclamation. When we see a man dramatically lamenting in a publication intended to be believed that "The age of chivalry is gone! that The glory of Europe is extinguished for ever! that The unbought grace of life (if anyone knows what it is), the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise is gone!”
― Thomas Paine, Rights of Man

“Something must be wrong then in art, or the happiness of life is sickening in the house of civilization. What has caused the sickness? Machine-labour will you say? Well, I have seen quoted a passage from one of the ancient Sicilian poets rejoicing in the fashioning of a water-mill, and exulting in labour being set free from the toil of the hand-quern in consequence; and that surely would be a type of man's natural hope when foreseeing the invention of labour-saving machinery as 'tis called; natural surely, since though I have said that the labour of which art can form a part should be accompanied by pleasure, so one could deny that there is some necessary labour even which is not pleasant in itself, and plenty of unnecessary labour which is merely painful. If machinery had been used for minimizing such labour, the utmost ingenuity would scarcely have been wasted on it; but is that the case in any way? Look round the world, and you must agree with John Stuart Mill in his doubt whether all the machinery of modern times has lightened the daily work of one labourer. And why have our natural hopes been so disappointed? Surely because in these latter days, in which as a matter of fact machinery has been invented, it was by no means invented with the aim of saving the pain of labour. The phrase labour-saving machinery is elliptical, and means machinery which saves the cost of labour, not the labour itself, which will be expended when saved on tending other machines. For a doctrine which, as I have said, began to be accepted under the workshop-system, is now universally received, even though we are yet short of the complete development of the system of the Factory. Briefly, the doctrine is this, that the essential aim of manufacture is making a profit; that it is frivolous to consider whether the wares when made will be of more or less use to the world so long as any one can be found to buy them at a price which, when the workman engaged in making them has received of necessaries and comforts as little as he can be got to take, will leave something over as a reward to the capitalist who has employed him. This doctrine of the sole aim of manufacture (or indeed of life) being the profit of the capitalist and the occupation of the workman, is held, I say, by almost every one; its corollary is, that labour is necessarily unlimited, and that to attempt to limit it is not so much foolish as wicked, whatever misery may be caused to the community by the manufacture and sale of the wares made.”
― William Morris, Art Under Plutocracy: Enriched edition. Exploring the Corrosive Influence of Wealth on Art in the 19th Century

“I will bestow them in good works and masses for the benefit of thy soul,” said Quentin.

“Name not that word again,” said Hayraddin, his countenance assuming a dreadful expression; “there is—there can be, there shall be—no such thing!—it is a dream of priestcraft.”

“Unhappy, most unhappy being! Think better! let me speed for a priest—these men will delay yet a little longer. I will bribe them to it,” said Quentin. “What canst thou expect, dying in such opinions, and impenitent?”

“To be resolved into the elements,” said the hardened atheist, pressing his fettered arms against his bosom; “my hope, trust, and expectation is that the mysterious frame of humanity shall melt into the general mass of nature, to be recompounded in the other forms with which she daily supplies those which daily disappear, and return under different forms—the watery particles to streams and showers, the earthy parts to enrich their mother earth, the airy portions to wanton in the breeze, and those of fire to supply the blaze of Aldebaran and his brethren.—In this faith have I lived, and I will die in it!—Hence! begone!—disturb me no farther!—I have spoken the last word that mortal ears shall listen to.”
― Sir Walter Scott, Quentin Durward

“Now shall the hard war-helm bedight with the gold
Be bereft of its plating; its polishers sleep,
They that the battle-mask erewhile should burnish:
Likewise the war-byrny, which abode in the battle
O'er break of the war-boards the bite of the irons, Crumbles after the warrior; nor may the ring'd byrny After the war-leader fare wide afield
On behalf of the heroes: nor joy of the harp is,
No game of the glee-wood; no goodly hawk now Through the hall swingeth; no more the swift horse Beateth the burg-stead. Now hath bale-quelling
A many of life-kin forth away sent.”
― William Morris, Beowulf