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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 -
The word 'Blue' does not mean the sensation caused by a gentian on the human eye; but it means the power of producing that sensation: and this power is always there, in the thing, whether we are there to experience it or not, and would remain there though there were not a man left on the face of the earth.
John Ruskin
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Flowers seem intended for the solace of ordinary humanity.
John Ruskin -
As in the instances of alchemy, astrology, witchcraft, and other such popular creeds, political economy, has a plausible idea at the root of it.
John Ruskin -
You talk of the scythe of Time, and the tooth of Time: I tell you, Time is scytheless and toothless; it is we who gnaw like the worm - we who smite like the scythe. It is ourselves who abolish - ourselves who consume: we are the mildew, and the flame.
John Ruskin -
You will find that the mere resolve not to be useless, and the honest desire to help other people, will, in the quickest and delicatest ways, improve yourself.
John Ruskin -
When men do not love their hearth, nor reverence their thresholds, it is a sign that they have dishonoured both ... Our God is a house – hold God, as well as a heavenly one; He has an altar in every man's dwelling.
John Ruskin -
A monk of La Trappe, a French soldier of the Imperial Guard, and a thriving mill-owner, supposing each a type, and no more than a type, of his class, are all interesting specimens of humanity, but narrow ones, - so narrow that even all the three together would not make up a perfect man.
John Ruskin
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Levi's station in life was the receipt of custom; and Peter's, the shore of Galilee; and Paul's, the antechambers of the High- Priest,- which 'station in life' each had to leave, with brief notice.
John Ruskin -
What do you suppose makes all men look back to the time of childhood with so much regret (if their childhood has been, in any moderate degree, healthy or peaceful)? That rich charm, which the least possession had for us, was in consequence of the poorness of our treasures.
John Ruskin -
Men don't and can't live by exchanging articles, but by producing them. They don't live by trade, but by work. Give up that foolish and vain title of Trades Unions; and take that of laborers Unions.
John Ruskin -
What is really desired, under the name of riches, is essentially, power over men ... this power ... is in direct proportion to the poverty of the men over whom it is exercised, and in inverse proportion to the number of persons who are as rich as ourselves.
John Ruskin -
You might sooner get lightning out of incense smoke than true action or passion out of your modern English religion.
John Ruskin -
Books are divided into two classes, the books of the hour and the books of all time.
John Ruskin
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It is in this power of saying everything, and yet saying nothing too plainly, that the perfection of art consists.
John Ruskin -
Modern education has devoted itself to the teaching of impudence, and then we complain that we can no longer control our mobs.
John Ruskin -
You may either win your peace or buy it: win it, by resistance to evil; buy it, by compromise with evil.
John Ruskin -
Men were not intended to work with the accuracy of tools, to be precise and perfect in all their actions.
John Ruskin -
The repose necessary to all beauty is repose, not of inanition, nor of luxury, nor of irresolution, but the repose of magnificent energy and being; in action, the calmness of trust and determination; in rest, the consciousness of duty accomplished and of victory won; and this repose and this felicity can take place as well in the midst of trial and tempest, as beside the waters of comfort.
John Ruskin -
The child who desires education will be bettered by it; the child who dislikes it disgraced.
John Ruskin
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You should read books like you take medicine, by advice, and not by advertisement.
John Ruskin -
When a man is wrapped up in himself, he makes a pretty small package.
John Ruskin -
Music when healthy, is the teacher of perfect order, and when depraved, the teacher of perfect disorder.
John Ruskin -
Greater completion marks the progress of art, absolute completion usually its decline.
John Ruskin