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I believe that there is no test of greatness in periods, nations or men more sure than the development, among them or in them, of a noble grotesque, and no test of comparative smallness or limitation, of one kind or another, more sure than the absence of grotesque invention, or incapability of understanding it.

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
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The imagination is never governed, it is always the ruling and divine power.
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You cannot have good architecture merely by asking people's advice on occasion. All good architecture is the expression of national life and character and it is produced by a prevalent and eager national taste, or desire for beauty.
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As in the instances of alchemy, astrology, witchcraft, and other such popular creeds, political economy, has a plausible idea at the root of it.
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He who has learned what is commonly considered the whole art of painting, that is, the art of representing any natural object faithfully, has as yet only learned the language by which his thoughts are to be expressed.
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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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... the weakest among us has a gift, however seemingly trivial, which is peculiar to him, and which, worthily used, will be a gift also to his race forever.
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Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together.
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Death is not a journey into an unknown land it is a voyage home. We are going, not to a strange country, but to our fathers house.
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An infinitude of tenderness is the chief gift and inheritance of all truly great men.
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He thinks by infection, catching an opinion like a cold.
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And remember, child, that nothing is ever done beautifully, which is done in rivalship or nobly, which is done in pride.
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We must note carefully what distinction there is between a healthy and a diseased love of change for as it was in healthy love of change that the Gothic architecture rose, it was partly in consequence of diseased love of change that it was destroyed.
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In one point of view, Gothic is not only the best, but the only rational architecture, as being that which can fit itself most easily to all services, vulgar or noble.
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The enormous influence of novelty--the way in which it quickens observations, sharpens sensations, and exalts sentiment--is not half enough taken note of by us, and is to me a very sorrowful matter. And yet, if we try to obtain perpetual change, change itself will become monotonous.
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There is no action so slight or so mean but it may be done to a great purpose, and ennobled thereby.
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Mighty of heart, mighty of mind, magnanimous-to be this is indeed to be great in life.
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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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Without mountains the air could not be purified, nor the flowing of the rivers sustained.
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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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There are many religions, but there is only one morality.
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