Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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

More quotes by John Ruskin

Image
Work first and then rest. Work first, and then gaze, but do not use golden ploughshares, nor bind ledgers in enamel.
John Ruskin
Image
Never has interest in art been so high, and never has quality been so low.
John Ruskin
Image
The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.
John Ruskin
Image
If the thing is impossible, you need not trouble yourselves about it if possible, try for it.
John Ruskin
Image
The path of a good woman is indeed strewn with flowers but they rise behind her steps, not before them.
John Ruskin
Image
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.
John Ruskin
Image
It is strange that of all the pieces of the Bible which my mother taught me, that which cost me the most to learn, and which was to my childish mind the most repulsive - Psalm 119 - has now become of all the most precious to me in its overflowing and glorious passion of love for the Law of God.
John Ruskin
Image
Depend upon it, the first universal characteristic of all great art is Tenderness, as the second is Truth.
John Ruskin
Image
Borrowers are nearly always ill-spenders, and it is with lent money that all evil is mainly done and all unjust war protracted.
John Ruskin
Image
There are many religions, but there is only one morality.
John Ruskin
Image
Which of us?is to do the hard and dirty work for the restand for what pay? Who is to do the pleasant and clean work, and for what pay?
John Ruskin
Image
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.
John Ruskin
Image
There is nothing so great or so goodly in creation, but that it is a mean symbol of the gospel of Christ, and of the things He has prepared for them that love Him.
John Ruskin
Image
A man is born an artist as a hippopotamus is born a hippopotamus and you can no more make yourself one than you can make yourself a giraffe.
John Ruskin
Image
Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort.
John Ruskin
Image
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.
John Ruskin
Image
There are no laws by which we can write Iliads.
John Ruskin
Image
The Divine mind is as visible in its full energy of operation on every lowly bank and mouldering stone as in the lifting of the pillars of heaven, and settling the foundation of the earth.
John Ruskin
Image
No good is ever done to society by the pictorial representation of its diseases.
John Ruskin
Image
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