We do great injustice to Iscariot, in thinking him wicked above all common wickedness. He was only a common money-lover, and, like all money-lovers, didn’t understand Christ; — couldn’t make out the worth of Him, or meaning of Him. He didn’t want Him to be killed. He was horror-struck when he found that Christ would be killed; threw his money away instantly, and hanged himself. How many of our present money-seekers, think you, would have the grace to hang themselves, whoever was killed?

—From John Ruskin Lecture, The Crown of Wild Olive

“If you were like him, you would be a great artist.”

In Francoise Gilot’s Life with Picasso she tells of how another of Picasso’s ex-lovers used to write huge letters haranguing him everyday, when she wasn’t stalking him. And she would often include a picture of Rembrandt and write, “If you were like him, you would be a great artist.” Gilot says this used to trouble Picasso a lot. But it sounds like it would be a useful service to everyone. 

“VANITY bids all her sons be generous and brave,———-and her daughters chaste and courteous.———-But why do we want her instructions?———-Ask the comedian who is taught a part he feels not———-

Is it that the principles of religion want strength, or that the real passion for what is good and worthy will not carry us high enough———-GOD! thou knowest they carry us too high———-we want not to be,—but to seem——-”

—from a Laurence Sterne sermon, 1764