John Ruskin Quotes
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Men say their pinnacles point to heaven. Why, so does every tree that buds, and every bird that rises as it sings. Men say their aisles are good for worship. Why, so is every mountain glen and rough sea-shore. But this they have of distinct and indisputable glory,--that their mighty walls were never raised, and never shall be, but by men who love and aid each other in their weakness.
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When I have been unhappy, I have heard an opera... and it seemed the shrieking of winds; when I am happy, a sparrow's chirp is delicious to me. But it is not the chirp that makes me happy, but I that make it sweet.
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Curiosity is a gift, a capacity of pleasure in knowing, which if you destroy, you make yourself cold and dull.
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There is in every animal's eye a dim image and gleam of humanity, a flash of strange light through which their life looks out and up to our great mystery of command over them, and claims the fellowship of the creature if not of the soul.
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Morality does not depend on religion.
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What is poetry? The suggestion, by the imagination, of noble grounds for the noble emotions.
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Science deals exclusively with things as they are in themselves; and art exclusively with things as they affect the human sense and human soul.
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It is a strange thing how little in general people know about the sky. It is the part of creation in which nature has done more for the sake of pleasing man.
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The virtue of the imagination is its reaching, by intuition and intensity, a more essential truth than is seen at the surface of things.
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The proof of a thing's being right is that it has power over the heart; that it excites us, wins us, or helps us.
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What is the cheapest to you now is likely to be the dearest to you in the end.
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They are good furniture pictures, unworthy of praise, and undeserving of blame.
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All men who have sense and feeling are being continually helped; they are taught by every person they meet, and enriched by everything that falls in their way. The greatest, is he who has been oftenest aided. Originality is the observing eye.
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It takes a great deal of living to get a little deal of learning.
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I believe that the sight is a more important thing than the drawing.
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At every moment of our lives we should be trying to find out, not in what we differ with other people, but in what we agree with them.
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God is a kind Father. He sets us all in the places where he wishes us to be employed. He chooses work for every creature which will be delightful to them if they do it simply and humbly. He gives us always strength enough and sense enough for what he wants us to do.