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It seems a fantastic paradox, but it is nevertheless a most important truth, that no architecture can be truly noble which is not imperfect.

John Ruskin

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John Ruskin
Age: 80 †
Born: 1819
Born: February 8
Died: 1900
Died: January 20
Aesthetician
Architect
Art Critic
Art Historian
Journalist
Literary Critic
Painter
Philosopher
Poet
Sociologist
University Teacher
Writer
London
England
Kata Phusin
Rŏsŭkʻin
J. Ruskin
John Rosukin
Jon Rasukin
Dzhon Rëskin
Ruskin
Truth
Paradox
Seems
Nevertheless
Important
Imperfect
Fantastic
Architecture
Noble
Truly
Literature

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Give an earnest-hearted, devoted girl any true work that will make her active in the dawn, and weary at night, with the consciousness that her fellow-creatures have indeed been the better for her day, and the powerless sorrow of her enthusiasm will transform itself into a majesty of radiant and beneficent peace.
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It is not how much one makes but to what purpose one spends.
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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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You may chisel a boy into shape, as you would a rock, or hammer him into it, if he be of a better kind, as you would a piece of bronze. But you cannot hammer a girl into anything. She grows as a flower does.
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Science has to do with facts, art with phenomena. To science, phenomena are of use only as they lead to facts and to art, facts are of use only as they lead to phenomena.
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No divine terror will ever be found in the work of the man who wastes a colossal strength in elaborating toys for the first lesson that terror is sent to teach us is, the value of the human soul, and the shortness of mortal time.
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Expression, sentiment, truth to nature, are essential: but all those are not enough. I never care to look at a picture again, if it be ill composed and if well composed I can hardly leave off looking at it.
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There is a working class - strong and happy - among both rich and poor: there is an idle class - weak, wicked, and miserable - among both rich and poor.
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And remember, child, that nothing is ever done beautifully, which is done in rivalship or nobly, which is done in pride.
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It is not the weariness of mortality, but the strength of divinity, which we have to recognize in all mighty things and that is just what we now never recognize, but think that we are to do great things by help of iron bars and perspiration. Alas! we shall do nothing that way but lose some pounds of our own weight.
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As in the instances of alchemy, astrology, witchcraft, and other such popular creeds, political economy, has a plausible idea at the root of it.
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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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Death is not a journey into an unknown land it is a voyage home. We are going, not to a strange country, but to our fathers house.
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Ignorance, which is contented and clumsy, will produce what is imperfect, but not offensive. But ignorance dis contented and dexterous, learning what it cannot understand, and imitating what it cannot enjoy, produces the most loathsome forms of manufacture that can disgrace or mislead humanity.
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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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If a book is worth reading, it is worth buying.
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It is strange that of all the pieces of the Bible which my mother taught me, that which cost me the most to learn, and which was to my childish mind the most repulsive - Psalm 119 - has now become of all the most precious to me in its overflowing and glorious passion of love for the Law of God.
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Architecture is the art which so disposes and adorns the edifices raised by man, that the sight of them may contribute to his mental health, power, and pleasure.
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You do not see with the lens of the eye. You seen through that, and by means of that, but you see with the soul of the eye.
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There are no laws by which we can write Iliads.
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