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Though you may have known clever men who were indolent, you never knew a great man who was so and when I hear a young man spoken of as giving promise of great genius, the first question I ask about him always is, Does he work?

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
Always
Doe
Promise
Never
Young
Genius
Men
May
Question
Firsts
Hear
First
Knew
Indolent
Giving
Asks
Laziness
Great
Though
Spoken
Work
Known
Clever

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Borrowers are nearly always ill-spenders, and it is with lent money that all evil is mainly done and all unjust war protracted.
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A man is born an artist as a hippopotamus is born a hippopotamus and you can no more make yourself one than you can make yourself a giraffe.
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To banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality.
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Life is a magic vase filled to the brim, so made that you cannot dip from it nor draw from it but it overflows into the hand that drops treasures into it. Drop in malice and it overflows hate drop in charity and it overflows love.
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I do not believe that any peacock envies another peacock his tail, because every peacock is persuaded that his own tail is the finest in the world. The consequence of this is that peacocks are peaceable birds.
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See! This our fathers did for us.
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High art consists neither in altering, nor in improving nature but in seeking throughout nature for 'whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are pure' in loving these, in displaying to the utmost of the painter's power such loveliness as is in them, and directing the thoughts of others to them by winning art, or gentle emphasis.
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All great art is the work of the whole living creature, body and soul, and chiefly of the soul.
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Genius is only a superior power of seeing.
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Morality does not depend on religion.
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All true opinions are living, and show their life by being capable of nourishment therefore of change. But their change is that of a tree not of a cloud.
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The actual flower is the plant's highest fulfilment, and are not here exclusively for herbaria, county floras and plant geography: they are here first of all for delight.
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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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He who can take no interest in what is small will take false interest in what is great.
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No peace was ever won from fate by subterfuge or argument no peace is ever in store for any of us, but that which we shall win by victory over shame or sin--victory over the sin that oppresses, as well as over that which corrupts.
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No one can ask honestly or hopefully to be delivered from temptation unless he has himself honestly and firmly determined to do the best he can to keep out of it.
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That man is always happy who is in the presence of something which he cannot know to the full, which he is always going on to know.
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The very cheapness of literature is making even wise people forget that if a book is worth reading, it is worth buying. No book is worth anything which is not worth much nor is it serviceable, until it has been read, and re-read, and loved, and loved again and marked, so that you can refer to the passages you want in it.
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God alone can finish.
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