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

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The entire vitality of art depends upon its being either full of truth, or full of use and that, however pleasant, wonderful, or impressive it may be in itself, it must yet be of inferior kind, and tend to deeper inferiority, unless it has clearly one of these main objects, either to state a true thing, or to adorn a serviceable one.
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When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.
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If only the Geologists would let me alone, I could do very well, but those dreadful Hammers! I hear the clink of them at the end of every cadence of the Bible verses.
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The sculptor must paint with his chisel half his touches are not to realize, but to put power into, the form. They are touches of light and shadow, and raise a ridge, or sink a hollow, not to represent an actual ridge or hollow, but to get a line of light, or a spot of darkness.
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It is not, truly speaking, the labour that is divided but the men: divided into mere segments of men - broken into small fragments and crumbs of life, so that all the little piece of intelligence that is left in a man is not enough to make a pin, or a nail, but exhausts itself in making the point of a pin or the head of a nail.
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You may sell your work, but not your soul.
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People are eternally divided into two classes, the believer, builder, and praiser...and the unbeliever, destroyer and critic.
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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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Sky is the part of creation in which Nature has done more for the sake of pleasing man, more for the sole and evident purpose of talking to him and teaching him, than in any other of her works, and it is just the part in which we least attend to her.
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Come, ye cold winds, at January's call, On whistling wings, and with white flakes bestrew The earth.
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It is his restraint that is honorable to a person, not their liberty.
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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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Beethoven always sounds to me like the upsetting of a bag of nails, with here and there an also dropped hammer.
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Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery.
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Every duty we omit obscures some truth we should have known.
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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.
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Never has interest in art been so high, and never has quality been so low.
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Unless we perform divine service with every willing act of our life, we never perform it at all.
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Color is, in brief terms, the type of love. Hence it is especially connected with the blossoming of the earth and again, with its fruits also, with the spring and fall of the leaf, and with the morning and evening of the day, in order to show the waiting of love about the birth and death of man.
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Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless peacocks and lilies for instance.
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