John Ruskin Quotes
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To do your own work well, whether it be for life or death.
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Remember always, in painting as in eloquence, the greater your strength, the quieter will be your manner, and the fewer your words; and in painting, as in all the arts and acts of life the secret of high success will be found, not in a fretful and various excellence, but in a quiet singleness of justly chosen aim.
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If the design of the building be originally bad, the only virtue it can ever possess will be signs of antiquity.
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Much of the character of everyman may be read in his house.
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The best work never was and never will be done for money.
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Society has sacrificed its virtues to the Goddess of Getting Along.
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Some slaves are scoured to their work by whips, others by their restlessness and ambition.
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We have seen when the earth had to be prepared for the habitation of man, a veil, as it were, of intermediate being was spread between him and its darkness, in which were joined in a subdued measure, the stability and insensibility of the earth, and the passion and perishing of mankind.
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You may sell your work, but not your soul.
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The art of nations is to be accumulative, just as science and history are; the work of living men not superseding, but building itself upon the work of the past.
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It is only by labour that thought can be made healthy, and only by thought that labour can be made happy, and the two cannot be separated with impunity.
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Sculpture is not the mere cutting of the form of anything in stone; it is the cutting of the effect of it. Very often the true form, in the marble, would not be in the least like itself.
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An infinitude of tenderness is the chief gift and inheritance of all truly great men.
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Mountains are to the rest of the body of the earth, what violent muscular action is to the body of man. The muscles and tendons of its anatomy are, in the mountain, brought out with force and convulsive energy, full of expression, passion, and strength.
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There is no action so slight or so mean but it may be done to a great purpose, and ennobled thereby.
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Not without design does God write the music of our lives. Be it ours to learn the time, and not be discouraged at the rests. If we say sadly to ourselves, "There is no music in a rest," let us not forget " there is the making of music in it." The making of music is often a slow and painful process in this life. How patiently God works to teach us! How long He waits for us to learn the lesson!
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God has lent us the earth for our life; it is a great entail. It belongs as much to those who are to come after us, and whose names are already written in the book of creation, as to us; and we have no right, by anything that we do or neglect, to involve them in unnecessary penalties, or deprive them of benefits which it was in our power to bequeath.
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It is far better to give work that is above a person, than to educate the person to be above their work.
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All great song, from the first day when human lips contrived syllables, has been sincere song.
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Trust thou thy Love: if she be proud, is she not sweet? Trust thou thy love: if she be mute, is she not pure? Lay thou thy soul full in her hands, low at her feet- Fail, Sun and Breath!-yet, for thy peace, she shall endure.
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It’s unwise to pay too much, but it’s worse to pay too little.
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All violent feelings have the same effect. They produce in us a falseness in all our impressions of external things, which I would generally characterize as the pathetic fallacy.
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Do justice to your brother, and you will come to love him. But do injustice to him because you don't love him, and you will come to hate him.
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The sculptor must paint with his chisel; half his touches are not to realize, but to put power into, the form. They are touches of light and shadow, and raise a ridge, or sink a hollow, not to represent an actual ridge or hollow, but to get a line of light, or a spot of darkness.