Still shining out

There were a number of these illuminated quotes in shop and other windows on Edinburgh's Royal Mile in the run up to Christmas.

The imaginative campaign called #wordsonthestreet was part of Edinburgh s City of Literature activity .

Some are still on display like this one opposite the Parliament and another I spotted this morning in the Scottish Poetry Library , on my way into work from an early appearance on the BBC at the Tun.

The quote is from the Enlightenment Philosopher and mathematician Dugald Stewart and it is worth quoting in full :

'The faculty of imagination is the great spring of human activity, and the principle source of human improvement. As it delights in presenting to the mind scenes and characters more perfect than those which we are acquainted with, it prevents us from ever being completely satisfied without present condition, or with our past attainments, and engages us continually in the pursuit of some untried enjoyment, or of some ideal excellence. Destroy this faculty, and the condition of man will become as stationary as that of the brutes."