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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.

John Ruskin
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The art which we may call generally art of the wayside, as opposed to that which is the business of men's lives, is, in the best sense of the word, Grotesque.
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A book worth reading is worth buying.
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Endurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty.
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When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.
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What do we, as a nation, care about books? How much do you think we spend altogether on our libraries, public or private, as compared with what we spend on our horses?
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Modern education has devoted itself to the teaching of impudence, and then we complain that we can no longer control our mobs.
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Cursing is invoking the assistance of a spirit to help you inflict suffering. Swearing on the other hand, is invoking, only the witness of a spirit to an statement you wish to make.
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Whereas it has long been known and declared that the poor have no right to the property of the rich, I wish it also to be known and declared that the rich have no right to the property of the poor.
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It is far more difficult to be simple than to be complicated; far more difficult to sacrifice skill and easy execution in the proper place, than to expand both indiscriminately.
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An architect should live as little in cities as a painter. Send him to our hills, and let him study there what nature understands by a buttress, and what by a dome.
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There is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.
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Nearly all the powerful people of this age are unbelievers, the best of them in doubt and misery, the most in plodding hesitation, doing as well as they can, what practical work lies at hand.
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Every great person is always being helped by everybody; for their gift is to get good out of all things and all persons.
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You may either win your peace or buy it: win it, by resistance to evil; buy it, by compromise with evil.
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Man's only true happiness is to live in hope of something to be won by him. Reverence something to be worshipped by him, and love something to be cherished by him, forever.
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Education is the leading of human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them.
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I have not written in vain if I have heretofore done anything towards diminishing the reputation of the Renaissance landscape painting.
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In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: They must be fit for it. They must not do too much of it. And they must have a sense of success in it.
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Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you.
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It is in this power of saying everything, and yet saying nothing too plainly, that the perfection of art consists.
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The first duty of government is to see that people have food, fuel, and clothes. The second, that they have means of moral and intellectual education.
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Let every dawn be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close.
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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 architecture is so haughty as that which is simple.
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Better the rudest work that tells a story or records a fact, than the richest without meaning.
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No good is ever done to society by the pictorial representation of its diseases.
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The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most.
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When we build, let us think that we build for ever.
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The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world... to see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion all in one.
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Not only is there but one way of doing things rightly, but there is only one way of seeing them, and that is, seeing the whole of them.
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He is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the sum of his works, the greatest number of the greatest ideas.
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Nothing is ever done beautifully which is done in rivalship: or nobly, which is done in pride.
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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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Natural abilities can almost compensate for the want of every kind of cultivation, but no cultivation of the mind can make up for the want of natural abilities.
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The strength and power of a country depends absolutely on the quantity of good men and women in it.
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There is never vulgarity in a whole truth, however commonplace. It may be unimportant or painful. It cannot be vulgar. Vulgarity is only in concealment of truth, or in affectation.
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The child who desires education will be bettered by it; the child who dislikes it disgraced.
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Give a little love to a child, and you get a great deal back.
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How long most people would look at the best book before they would give the price of a large turbot for it?
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That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings.
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A great thing can only be done by a great person; and they do it without effort.
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Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance.
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I believe the first test of a truly great man is in his humility.
John Ruskin