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Now the basest thought possible concerning man is, that he has no spiritual nature and the foolishest misunderstanding of him possible is, that he has, or should have, no animal nature. For his nature is nobly animal, nobly spiritual,--coherently and irrevocably so neither part of it may, but at its peril, expel, despise, or defy the other.

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
Nature
Concerning
Thought
Misunderstanding
Part
Peril
Coherently
May
Despise
Basest
Men
Neither
Expel
Animal
Irrevocably
Possible
Nobly
Spiritual
Defy

More quotes by John Ruskin

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In all things that live there are certain irregularities, and deficiencies which are not only signs of life, but sources of beauty. No human face is exactly the same in its lines on each side, no leaf perfect in its lobes, no branch in its symmetry.
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Every duty we omit obscures some truth we should have known.
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One evening, when I was yet in my nurse's arms, I wanted to touch the tea urn, which was boiling merrily ... My nurse would have taken me away from the urn, but my mother said Let him touch it. So I touched it - and that was my first lesson in the meaning of liberty.
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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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When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought is incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do.
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Temperance, in the nobler sense, does not mean a subdued and imperfect energy it does not mean a stopping short in any good thing, as in love and in faith but it means the power which governs the most intense energy, and prevents its acting in way but as it ought.
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The actual flower is the plant's highest fulfilment, and are not here exclusively for herbaria, county floras and plant geography: they are here first of all for delight.
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Work first, and then rest.
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Skill is the unified force of experience, intellect and passion in their operation.
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Education is the leading human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them and these two objects are always attainable together, and by the same means the training which makes man happiest in themselves also makes them most serviceable to others.
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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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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.
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Pleasure comes through toil, and not by self indulgence and indolence. When one gets to love work, his life is a happy one.
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A nation which lives a pastoral and innocent life never decorates the shepherd's staff or the plough-handle but races who live by depredation and slaughter nearly always bestow exquisite ornaments on the quiver, the helmet, and the spear.
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If the design of the building be originally bad, the only virtue it can ever possess will be signs of antiquity.
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To know anything well involves a profound sensation of ignorance.
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Such help as we can give to each other in this world is a debt to each other and the man who perceives a superiority or a capacity in a subordinate, and neither confesses nor assists it, is not merely the withholder of kindness, but the committer of injury.
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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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There is rough work to be done, and rough men must do it there is gentle work to be done, and gentlemen must do it.
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You cannot get anything out of nature or from God by gambling only out of your neighbor.
John Ruskin