Letters are things, not pictures of things. Eric Gill More Quotes by Eric Gill More Quotes From Eric Gill The artist is not a different kind of person, but every person is a different kind of artist. Eric Gill different kind art The shapes of letters do not derive their beauty from any sensual or sentimental reminiscences. No one can say that the O’s roundness appeals to us only because it is like that of an apple or of a girl’s breast or of the full moon. Letters are things, not pictures of things. Eric Gill apples girl moon Culture is a sham if it is only a sort of Gothic front put on an iron building -- like Tower Bridge -- or a classical front put on a steel frame -- like the Daily Telegraph building in Fleet Street. Culture, if it is to be a real thing and a holy thing, must be the product of what we actually do for a living -- not something added, like sugar on a pill. Eric Gill iron real bridges There are now about as many different varieties of letters as there are different kinds of fools. Eric Gill design different letters Art is skill, that is the first meaning of the word. Eric Gill skills art firsts Legibility, in practice, amounts simply to what one is accustomed to. But this is not to say that because we have got used to something demonstrably less legible than something else would be if we could get used to it, we should make no effort to scrap the existing thing. This was done by the Florentines and Romans of the fifteenth century; it requires simply good sense in the originators & good will in the rest of us. Eric Gill effort practice would-be Legibility, in practice, amounts simply to what one is accustomed to. Eric Gill typography design practice If you look after truth and goodness, beauty looks after herself. Eric Gill goodness ifs looks If you look after goodness and truth, beauty will take care of itself. Eric Gill design care looks Art itself has become an extraordinary thing - the activity of peculiar people - people who become more and more peculiar as their activity becomes more and more extraordinary. Eric Gill peculiar people art Continued experiment with dog today. Eric Gill design dog today Writing is in fact an entirely outworn, decayed and corrupt convention whose chief & most conspicuous character is its monumental witness to the conservatism, laziness and irrationality of men and women. Eric Gill writing character men The value of the creative faculty derives from the fact that faculty is the primary mark of man. To deprive man of its exercise is to reduce him to subhumanity. Eric Gill exercise men art Man cannot live on the human plane, he must be either above or below it. Eric Gill planes humans men Without philosophy man cannot know what he makes; without religion he cannot know why. Eric Gill knows men philosophy Ultimately there is no happiness in a world in which things are not as good as they can be. Eric Gill world Science is analytical, descriptive, informative. Man does not live by bread alone, but by science he attempts to do so. Hence the deadliness of all that is purely scientific. Eric Gill doe men science Catholics are necessarily at war with this age. That we are not more conscious of the fact, that we so often endeavor to make an impossible peace with it -- that is the tragedy. You cannot serve God and Mammon. Eric Gill catholic war religion That state is a state of slavery in which a man does what he likes to do in his spare time and in his working time that which is required of him. Eric Gill slavery doe men It is freely admitted that this "testing" is far from ideal and could even be described as anecdotal. Eric Gill testing typography design
