"To be able to ask a question clearly is two-thirds of the way to getting it answered."
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Quote collection
John Ruskin quotes (page 3 of 31)
606 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Kind hearts are the garden, kind thoughts are the roots, kind words are the blossoms, kind deeds are the fruit."
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"No human face is exactly the same in its lines on each side, no leaf perfect in its lobes, no branch in its symmetry. All admit irregularity as they imply change; and to banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality. All things are literally better, lovelier, and more beloved for the imperfections which have been divinely appointed, that the law of human life may be Effort, and the law of human judgment, Mercy."
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"We require from buildings two kinds of goodness: first, the doing their practical duty well: then that they be graceful and pleasing in doing it."
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"No individual rain drop ever considers itself responsible for the flood."
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"Do not think of your faults, still less of other's faults; look for what is good and strong, and try to imitate it. Your faults will drop off, like dead leaves, when their time comes."
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"People are eternally divided into two classes, the believer, builder, and praiser...and the unbeliever, destroyer and critic."
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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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"You might sooner get lightning out of incense smoke than true action or passion out of your modern English religion."
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"When we build, let us think that we build forever."
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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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"The root of almost every schism and heresy from which the Christian Church has suffered, has been because of the effort of men to earn, rather than receive their salvation; and the reason preaching is so commonly ineffective is, that it often calls on people to work for God rather than letting God work through them."
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"One can't be angry when one looks at a penguin."
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"To banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality."
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"The first test of a truly great man is his humility. By humility I don't mean doubt of his powers or hesitation in speaking his opinion, but merely an understanding of the relationship of what he can say and what he can do."
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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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"The Bible is the one Book to which any thoughtful man may go with any honest question of life or destiny and find the answer of God by honest searching."
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"Let every dawn of morning be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close: — then let every one of these short lives leave its sure record of some kindly thing done for others — some goodly strength or knowledge gained for yourselves."
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"Along the iron veins that traverse the frame of our country, beat and flow the fiery pulses of its exertion, hotter and faster every hour. All vitality is concentrated through those throbbing arteries into the central cities; the country is passed over like a green sea by narrow bridges, and we are thrown back in continually closer crowds on the city gates."
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"It’s unwise to pay too much, but it’s worse to pay too little."
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