John Ruskin Quotes
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He that would be angry and sin not, must not be angry with anything but sin.
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Every great person is always being helped by everybody; for their gift is to get good out of all things and all persons.
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There is nothing so small but that we may honor God by asking His guidance of it, or insult Him by taking it into our own hands.
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The more readily we admit the possibility of our own cherished convictions being mixed with error, the more vital and helpful whatever is right in them will become; and no error is so conclusively fatal as the idea that God will not allow us to err, though He has allowed all other men to do so.
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If the thing is impossible, you need not trouble yourselves about it; if possible, try for it.
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Imaginary evils soon become real one by indulging our reflections on them.
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The artist's business is to feel, although he may think a little sometimes... when he has nothing better to do.
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A little thought and a little kindness are often worth more than a great deal of money.
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All great art is the expression of man's delight in God's work, not his own.
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No person who is well bred, kind and modest is ever offensively plain; all real deformity means want for manners or of heart.
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The true work of a critic is not to make his hearer believe him, but agree with him.
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That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings.
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The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most.
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Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you.
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English artists are usually entirely ruined by residence in Italy.
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The first condition of education is being able to put someone to wholesome and meaningful work.
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Drunkenness is not only the cause of crime, but it is crime; and if any encourage drunkenness for the sake of the profit derived from the sale of drink, they are guilty of a form of moral assassination as criminal as any that has ever been practiced by the braves of any country or of any age.
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The truth of Nature is a part of the truth of God; to him who does not search it out, darkness; to him who does, infinity.
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What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do.
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Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery.
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Beethoven always sounds to me like the upsetting of a bag of nails, with here and there an also dropped hammer.
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As unity demanded for its expression what at first might have seemed its opposite--variety; so repose demands for its expression the implied capability of its opposite--energy. It is the most unfailing test of beauty; nothing can be ignoble that possesses it, nothing right that has it not.
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All true opinions are living, and show their life by being capable of nourishment; therefore of change. But their change is that of a tree - not of a cloud.
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Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts the book of their deeds, the book of their words, and the book of their art. Not one of these books can be understood unless we read the two others; but of the three, the only quite trustworthy one is the last. The acts of a nation may be triumphant by its good fortune; and its words mighty by the genius of a few of its children: but its art, only by the general gifts and common sympathies of the race.