John Ruskin Quotes
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Your art is to be the praise of something that you love. It may only be the praise of a shell or a stone.
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When a man is wrapped up in himself, he makes a pretty small package.
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Flowers seem intended for the solace of ordinary humanity.
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For men to feel their souls withering within them, unthanked, to find their whole being sunk into an unrecognized abyss, to be counted off into a heap of mechanism numbered with its wheels, and weighed with its hammer strokes - this, nature bade not, - this, God blesses not, - this, humanity for no long time is able to endure.
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There is no climate, no place, and scarcely an hour, in which nature does not exhibit color which no mortal effort can imitate or approach. For all our artificial pigments are, even when seen under the same circumstances, dead and lightless beside her living color; nature exhibits her hues under an intensity of sunlight which trebles their brilliancy.
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The world is full of vulgar Purists, who bring discredit on all selection by the silliness of their choice; and this the more, because the very becoming a Purist is commonly indicative of some slight degree of weakness, readiness to be offended, or narrowness of understanding of the ends of things.
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In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: They must be fit for it. They must not do too much of it. And they must have a sense of success in it.
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There is nothing so great or so goodly in creation, but that it is a mean symbol of the gospel of Christ, and of the things He has prepared for them that love Him.
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Milton saw not, and Beethoven heard not, but the sense of beauty was upon them, and they fain must speak.
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See that your children be taught, not only the labors of the earth, but the loveliness of it.
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The child who desires education will be bettered by it; the child who dislikes it disgraced.
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I do not believe that ever any building was truly great, unless it had mighty masses, vigorous and deep, of shadow mingled with its surface.
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The question is not what man can scorn, or disparage, or find fault with, but what he can love, and value, and appreciate.
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One who does not know when to die, does not know how to live.
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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.
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We are, after all, only trustees of the wealth we possess. Without the community and its resources... there would be little wealth for anyone.
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When the whole world turns clown, and paints itself red with its own hearts blood instead of vermilion, it is something else than comic.
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No lying knight or lying priest ever prospered in any age, but especially not in the dark ones. Men prospered then only in following an openly declared purpose, and preaching candidly beloved and trusted creeds.
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Why is one man richer than another? Because he is more industrious, more persevering and more sagacious.
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They are the weakest-minded and the hardest-hearted men that most love change.
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Government and cooperation are in all things the laws of life. Anarchy and competition, the laws of death.
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The Divine mind is as visible in its full energy of operation on every lowly bank and mouldering stone as in the lifting of the pillars of heaven, and settling the foundation of the earth.
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Your honesty is not to be based either on religion or policy. Both your religion and policy must be based on it. Your honesty must be based, as the sun is, in vacant heaven; poised, as the lights in the firmament, which have rule over the day and over the night.
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The essence of lying is in deception, not in words.