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The finer the nature, the more flaws it will show through the clearness of it and it is a law of this universe that the best things shall be seldomest seen in their best form.

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
Law
Show
Universe
Shows
Clearness
Nature
Finer
Form
Flaws
Best
Shall
Things
Seen

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When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.
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Variety is a positive requisite even in the character of our food.
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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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No art can be noble which is incapable of expressing thought, and no art is capable of expressing thought which does not change.
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No human being, however great, or powerful, was ever so free as a fish.
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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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To do your own work well, whether it be for life or death.
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I wish they would use English instead of Greek words. When I want to know why a leaf is green, they tell me it is coloured by chlorophyll, which at first sounds very instructive but if they would only say plainly that a leaf is coloured green by a thing which is called green leaf, we should see more precisely how far we had got.
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Your labor only may be sold, your soul must not.
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All violent feelings have the same effect. They produce in us a falseness in all our impressions of external things, which I would generally characterize as the pathetic fallacy.
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You should read books like you take medicine, by advice, and not by advertisement.
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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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No girl who is well bred, 'kind, and modest, is ever offensively plain all real deformity means want of manners, or of heart.
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If a book is worth reading, it is worth buying.
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The beginning and almost the end of all good law is that everyone shall work for their bread and receive good bread for their work.
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Remember always, in painting as in eloquence, the greater your strength, the quieter will be your manner, and the fewer your words and in painting, as in all the arts and acts of life the secret of high success will be found, not in a fretful and various excellence, but in a quiet singleness of justly chosen aim.
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I desire ... to leave this one great fact clearly stated. THERE IS NO WEALTH BUT LIFE.
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If the thing is impossible, you need not trouble yourselves about it if possible, try for it.
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God alone can finish.
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