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All you have really to do is to keep your back as straight as you can and not think about what is upon it. The real and essential meaning of virtue is that straightness of back.

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
Keep
Back
Straightness
Real
Straight
Really
Essential
Think
Essentials
Thinking
Meaning
Virtue
Upon

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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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Our purity of taste is best tested by its universality, for if we can only admire this thing or that, we maybe use that our cause for liking is of a finite and false nature.
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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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Education is the leading of human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them.
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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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In painting as in eloquence, the greater your strength, the quieter your manner.
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When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.
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Multitudes think they like to do evil yet no man ever really enjoyed doing evil since God made the world.
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The distinguishing sign of slavery is to have a price, and to be bought for it.
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Your labor only may be sold, your soul must not.
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He thinks by infection, catching an opinion like a cold.
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He is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the sum of his works, the greatest number of the greatest ideas.
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An artist should be well read in the best books, and thoroughly high bred, both in heart and bearing. In a word, he should be fit for the best society, and should keef out of it.
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Science deals exclusively with things as they are in themselves and art exclusively with things as they affect the human sense and human soul.
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Every duty we omit obscures some truth we should have known.
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Whenever you see want or misery or degradation in this world about you, then be sure either industry has been wanting, or industry has been in error.
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I believe that the first test of a great man is his humility. I don't mean by humility, doubt of his power. But really great men have a curious feeling that the greatness is not of them, but through them. And they see something divine in every other man and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful.
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All great song, from the first day when human lips contrived syllables, has been sincere song.
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