Patronage Quotes

• There is nothing which can better deserve your patronage, than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.

  George Washington

  Country, Inspiration, Knowledge

  George Washington, Jared Sparks (1838). “The Writings of George Washington: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private”, p.9

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• If a patron buys from an artist who needs money (needs money to buy tools, time, food), the patron then makes himself equal to the artist; he is building art into the world; he creates.

  Ezra Pound

  Art, Money, Needs

  Ezra Pound, Timothy Materer (1991). “The Selected Letters of Ezra Pound to John Quinn: 1915–1924”, p.2, Duke University Press

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• Character is power; it makes friends, draws patronage and support and opens the way to wealth, honor and happiness.

  John Howe

  Moving, Character, Support

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• Get the confidence of the public and you will have no difficulty in getting their patronage.

  Harry Gordon Selfridge

  Difficulty

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• There will never be great architects or great architecture without great patrons.

  Edwin Lutyens

  Greatness, Design, Architecture

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• Patronage is almost a wicked word. By itself it could well-nigh defeat democracy.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Democracy, Wicked, Defeat

  Dwight D. Eisenhower, Alfred Dupont Chandler, Louis Galambos (1978). “The papers: The chief of staff”

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• If it were not for the intellectual snobs who pay - in solid cash - the arts would perish with their starving practitioners. Let us thank heaven for hypocrisy.

  Aldous Huxley

  Art, Hypocrite, Hypocrisy

  Aldous Huxley (2000). “Complete Essays: 1926-1929”, Ivan R Dee

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• I would rather have as my patron a host of anonymous citizens digging into their own pockets for the price of a book or a magazine than a small body of enlightened and responsible men administering public funds. I would rather chance my personal vision of truth striking home here and there in the chaos of publication that exists than attempt to filter it through a few sets of official, honorably public-spirited scruples.

  John Updike

  Art, Book, Home

  John Updike's tstimony given before the Subcommittee on Select Education of the House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor in Boston, Massachusetts, January 30, 1978.

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• Patron: One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is repaid in flattery.

  Samuel Johnson

  Support, Flattery, Insolence

  "A Dictionary of the English Language". Book by Samuel Johnson, 1755.

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• Each of the Arts whose office is to refine, purify, adorn, embellish and grace life is under the patronage of a Muse, no god being found worthy to preside over them.

  Eliza Farnham

  Art, Office, Grace

  Eliza Wood Farnham (1864). “Woman and Her Era”, p.122

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• I do not want any patronage, as I do not give any. I am a lover of my own liberty, and so I would do nothing to restrict yours. I simply want to please my own conscience which is God.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Giving, Religion, Liberty

  Mahatma Gandhi (1927). “Young India”

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• I would argue that one of the issues which the public should be much more emphatic about with all politicians... is patronage, appointing people to high positions because they supported your campaign or helped you raise money.

  John Hickenlooper

  Issues, People, Campaigns

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• I'm a lover of my own liberty, and so I would do nothing to restrict yours.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Liberty, Lovers, My Own

  Young India, January 21, 1927.

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• Is not a patron one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help?

  Samuel Johnson

  Struggle, Men, Water

  Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) (letter to Lord Chesterfield, 7 Feb. 1755)

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• The first impression and a natural one is, that the fine arts have risen or declined in proportion as patronage has been given to them or withdrawn, but it will be found that there has often been more money lavished on them in their worst periods than in their best, and that the highest honours have frequently been bestowed on artists whose names are scarcely now known.

  John Constable

  Art, Names, First Impression

  John Constable (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of John Constable (Illustrated)”, p.599, Delphi Classics

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• The patronage state is an arrogant state. It assumes it can spend your money better than you do. Yet it expects you to work for it in the first place.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Arrogant, Firsts, Assuming

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• A little learning is a dangerous thing, but a little patronage more so.

  Charles Dickens

  Attitude, Ignorance, Littles

  Charles Dickens (1867). “Charles Dickens's works. Charles Dickens ed. [18 vols. of a 21 vol. set. Wanting A child's history of England; Christmas stories; The mystery of Edwin Drood].”, p.20

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• There is almost no country in Africa where it is not essential to know to which tribe, or which subgroup of which tribe, the president belongs. From this single piece of information you can trace the lines of patronage and allegiance that define the state.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Country, President, Essentials

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• I know so well what becomes of unmarried women who aren't prepared to occupy a position. I've seen such pitiful cases in the South barely tolerated spinsters living upon the grudging patronage of sister's husband or brother's wife! stuck away in some little mouse-trap of a room encouraged by one in-law to visit another little birdlike women without any nest eating the crust of humility all their life! Is that the future that we've mapped out for ourselves?

  Tennessee Williams

  Brother, Husband, Humility

  Tennessee Williams (1996). “The Glass Menagerie”, p.12, Heinemann

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• I'm sure I'll find some use for the dress before summer."Kavill nodded, and closed his thick ledger. "Do let me know if it causes anyone to faint-or start a riot."She laughed under her breath, and turned to go, stuffing her hands into her pockets and praying her fingers didn't fall off on the way home."Here," Kavill said, and she turned to find a pair of exquisite dove-gray suede gloves in his hands. "On the house. For many years of loyal patronage." His face bore its usual mask of polite calm and courtesy, but his brown eyes were bright. "And a gift-for a year spent without any gloves at all.

  Sarah J. Maas

  Love, Summer, Fall

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• This great oracle of the East India Company himself admits that, if there is no power vested in the Court of Directors but that of the patronage, there is really no government vested in them at all.

  Richard Cobden

  Government, Directors, India

  Richard Cobden (1870). “Speeches on Questions of Public Policy”, p.381

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• Congress-these, for the most part, illiterate hacks whose fancy vests are spotted with gravy, and whose speeches, hypocritical, unctuous, and slovenly, are spotted also with the gravy of political patronage.

  Mary McCarthy

  Political, Speech, Fancy

  Mary McCarthy (1964). “The humanist in the bathtub”

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• Female schools might be comprised in the list of those worthy the public patronage, with great propriety.

  Joseph Lancaster

  School, Female, Might

  Joseph Lancaster (1807). “Improvements in Education, as it Respects the Industrious Classes of the Community: Containing Among Other Important Particulars, an Account of the Institution for the Education of One Thousand Poor Children, Borough Road, Southwark; and of the New System of Education on which it is Conducted”, p.153

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• It is not so much in buying pictures as in being pictures, that you can encourage a noble school. The best patronage of art is not that which seeks for the pleasures of sentiment in a vague ideality, nor for beauty of form in a marble image, but that which educates your children into living heroes, and binds down the flights and the fondnesses of the heart into practical duty and faithful devotion.

  John Ruskin

  Art, Children, Hero

  John Ruskin, Louisa Caroline Tuthill (1867). “Precious Thoughts: Moral and Religious. Gathered from the Works of John Ruskin, A. M.”, p.77

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• I am committed against every thing which in my judgment, may weaken, endanger, or destroy (the Constitution) ... and especially against all extension of Executive power; and I am committed against any attempt to rule the free people of this country by the power and the patronage of the Government itself.

  Daniel Webster

  Country, Government, People

  Daniel Webster (1854). “The Works”, p.336

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