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

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Our duty is to preserve what the past has had to say for itself, and to say for ourselves what shall be true for the future.
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Nature is painting for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty.
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No human being, however great, or powerful, was ever so free as a fish.
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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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Whenever I did anything wrong, stupid or hard-hearted, and I have done many things that were all three, my mother always said it is because you were too much indulged.
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Do not think it wasted time to submit yourselves to any influence which may bring upon you any noble feeling.
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In the range of inorganic nature. I doubt if any object can be found more perfectly beautiful than a fresh, deep snowdrift, seen under warm light.
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The path of a good woman is indeed strewn with flowers but they rise behind her steps, not before them.
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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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A gentleman's first characteristic is that fineness of structure in the body which renders it capable of the most delicate sensation and of structure in the mind which renders it capable of the most delicate sympathies one may say simply fineness of nature.
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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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Modern education has devoted itself to the teaching of impudence, and then we complain that we can no longer control our mobs.
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There is nothing that this age, from whatever standpoint we survey it, needs more, physically, intellectually, and morally, than thorough ventilation.
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The first test of a truly great man is his humility. By humility I don't mean doubt of his powers or hesitation in speaking his opinion, but merely an understanding of the relationship of what he can say and what he can do.
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In old times men used their powers of painting to show the objects of faith, in later times they use the objects of faith to show their powers of painting.
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