"The relative majesty of buildings depends more on the weight and vigour of their masses than any other tribute of their design."
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Quote collection
John Ruskin quotes (page 28 of 31)
606 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"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 must get into the habit of looking intensely at words, and assuring yourself of their meaning, syllable by syllable-nay, letter by letter... you might read all the books in the British Museum (if you could live long enough) and remain an utterly "illiterate," undeducated person; but if you read ten pages of a good book, letter by letter, - that is to say, with real accuracy- you are for evermore in some measure an educated person."
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"Architecture ... the adaptation of form to resist force."
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"Commerce is the agency by which the power of choice is obtained."
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"Architecture concerns itself only with those characters of an edifice which are above and beyond its common use."
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"Society has sacrificed its virtues to the Goddess of Getting Along."
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"Failure is less attributable to either insufficiency of means or impatience of labours than to a confused understanding of the thing actually to be done."
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"No nation can last which has made a mob of itself, however generous at heart."
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"... Amongst all the mechanical poison that this terrible nineteenth century has poured upon men, it has given us at any rate one antidote - the Daguerreotype. (1845)"
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"Why is one man richer than another? Because he is more industrious, more persevering and more sagacious."
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"All great art is the expression of man's delight in God's work, not his own."
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"If some people really see angels where others see only empty space, let them paint the angels: only let not anybody else think they can paint an angel too, on any calculated principles of the angelic."
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"The wisest men are wise to the full in death."
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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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"The force of the guinea you have in your pocket depends wholly on the default of a guinea in your neighbour's pocket. If he did not want it, it would be of no use to you."
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"Modern science gives lectures on botany, to show there is no such thing as a flower; on humanity, to show there is no such thing as a man; and on theology, to show there is no such thing as a God. No such thing as a man, but only a mechanism, No such thing as a God, but only a series of forces."
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"Surely our clergy need not be surprised at the daily increasing distrust in the public mind of the efficacy of prayer."
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"I know few Christians so convinced of the splendor of the rooms in their Father's house, as to be happier when their friends are called to those mansions... Nor has the Church's ardent "desire to depart, and be with Christ," ever cured it of the singular habit of putting on mourning for every person summoned to such departure."
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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."
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