01UndatedDo not think of your faults, still less of others' faults; in every person who comes near you, look for what is good and strong; honor that; rejoice in it; and as you can, try to imitate it; and your faults will drop off like dead leaves when their time comes.John Ruskin / quote ↗
02UndatedThere is no music in a rest, but there is the making of music in it. In our whole life melody, the music is broken off here and there by "rests," and we foolishly think we have come to the end of time. God sends a time of forced leisure—sickness, disappointed plans, frustrated efforts—and makes a sudden pause in the choral hymn of our lives, and we lament that our voices must be silent, and our part missing in the music which ever goes up to the ear of the Creator. How does the musician read the rest? See him beat time with unvarying count and catch up the next note true and steady, as if no breaking place had come in between. Not without design does God write the music of our lives. But be it ours to learn the time, and not be dismayed at the "rests." They are not to be slurred over, nor to be omitted, nor to destroy the melody, nor to change the key-note. If we look up, God Himself will beat the time for us. With the eye on Him we shall strike the next note full and clear.John Ruskin / quote ↗
03UndatedMake yourselves nests of pleasant thoughts, bright fancies, faithful sayings; treasure-houses of precious and restful thoughts, which care cannot disturb nor poverty take away from you,—houses built without hands for your souls to live in.John Ruskin / quote ↗
04UndatedViolet: "Well, but surely at least one ought to be afraid of displeasing God; and one's desire to please Him should be one's first motive." Lecturer: "He never would be pleased with us, if it were, my dear. When a father sends his son out into the world—suppose as an apprentice—fancy the boy's coming home at night, and saying, 'Father, I could have robbed the till to-day; but I didn't because I thought you wouldn't like it.' Do you think the father would be particularly pleased?" (Violet is silent). "He would answer, would he not, if he were wise and good, 'My boy, though you had no father, you must not rob tills.' And nothing is ever done so as really to please our Great Father, unless we would also have done it, though we had had no Father to know of it."John Ruskin / quote ↗
05UndatedGod is a kind Father. He sets us all in the places where he wishes us to be employed, and that employment is truly "our Father's business." He chooses work for every creature which will be delightful to them, if they do it simply and humbly. He gives us always strength enough and sense enough for what He wants us to do; if we either tire ourselves or puzzle ourselves, it is our own fault. And we may always be sure, whatever we are doing, that we cannot be pleasing Him if we are not happy ourselves.John Ruskin / quote ↗
06UndatedIt is better to lose your pride with someone you love rather than to lose that someone you love with your useless pride.John Ruskin / quote ↗
08UndatedHe who has truth at his heart need never fear the want of persuasion on his tongue.John Ruskin / quote ↗
09UndatedTo speak and act truth with constancy and precision is nearly as difficult, and perhaps as meretorious, as to speak it under intimidation or penaltyJohn Ruskin / quote ↗
10UndatedFor, truly, the man who does not know when to die, does not know how to live.John Ruskin / quote ↗
11UndatedTo be taught to read—what is the use of that, if you know not whether what you read is false or true? To be taught to write or to speak—but what is the use of speaking, if you have nothing to say? To be taught to think—nay, what is the use of being able to think, if you have nothing to think of? But to be taught to see is to gain word and thought at once, and both true.John Ruskin / quote ↗
12Undatedthe true knowledge is disciplined and tested knowledge,—not the first thought that comes, so the true passion is disciplined and tested passion,—not the first passion that comes. The first that come are the vain, the false, the treacherous; if you yield to them they will lead you wildly and far, in vain pursuit, in hollow enthusiasm, till you have no true purpose and no true passion left. Not that any feeling possible to humanity is in itself wrong, but only wrong when undisciplined.John Ruskin / quote ↗
13UndatedEducation does not mean teaching people what they do not know. It means teaching them to behave as they do not behave.John Ruskin / quote ↗
15UndatedIf only the Geologists would let me alone, I could do very well, but those dreadful Hammers! I hear the clink of them at the end of every cadence of the Bible versesJohn Ruskin / quote ↗
16UndatedAll books are divisible into two classes: the books of the hours, and the books of all Time.John Ruskin / quote ↗
17UndatedIt's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. Whenyou pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you paytoo little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing youbought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. Thecommon law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting alot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is wellto add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you willhave enough to pay for something better.John Ruskin / quote ↗
19UndatedIt does not much matter that an individual loses two or three hundred pounds in buying a bad picture, but it is to be regretted that a nation should lose two or three hundred thousand in raising a ridiculous building.John Ruskin / quote ↗
20UndatedNearly all our associations are determined by chance or necessity; and restricted within a narrow circle. We cannot know whom we would; and those whom we know, we cannot have at our side when we most need them. All the higher circles of human intelligence are, to those beneath, only momentarily and partially open... there is a society continually open to us, of people who will talk to us as long as we like, whatever our rank or occupation; — talk to us in the best words they can choose, and of the things nearest their hearts. And this society, because it is so numerous and so gentle, and can be kept waiting around us all day long, — kings and statesmen lingering patiently, not to grant audience, but to gain it! — in those plainly furnished and narrow ante-rooms, our bookcase shelves, — we make no account of that company, — perhaps never listen to a word they would say, all day long!John Ruskin / quote ↗
21UndatedWe are always in these days endeavoring to separate intellect and manual labor; we want one man to be always thinking, and another to be always working, and we call one a gentleman, and the other an operative; whereas the workman ought often to be thinking, and the thinker often to be working, and both should be gentlemen in the best sense.John Ruskin / quote ↗
23UndatedAnd observe, you are put to stern choice in this matter. You must either make a tool of the creature, or a man of him. You cannot make both. Men were not intended to work with the accuracy of tools, to be precise and perfect in all their actions. If you will have that precision out of them, and make their fingers measure degrees like cogwheels, and their arms strike curves like compasses, you must unhumanize them. All the energy of their spirits must be given to make cogs and compasses of themselves....On the other hand, if you will make a man of the working creature, you cannot make a tool. Let him but begin to imagine, to think, to try to do anything worth doing; and the engine-turned precision is lost at once. Out come all his roughness; all his dullness, all his incapability; shame upon shame, failure upon failure, pause after pause: but out comes the whole majesty of him also, and we know the height of it only, when we see the clouds settling upon him.John Ruskin / quote ↗
24UndatedSay all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them.John Ruskin / quote ↗
