John Ruskin, (1819-1900) English art critic. Quotes

I will strive to raise my own body and soul daily into all the higher powers of duty and happiness, not in rivalship or contention with others but for the help and delight and honor of others and for the joy and peace of my own life.

We were not sent into this world to do anything into which we can not put our heart.

When men are rightfully occupied, then their amusement grows out of their work as the color petals out of a fruitful garden.

Of all the things that oppress me, this sense of the evil working of nature herself -- my disgust at her barbarity -- clumsiness -- darkness -- bitter mockery of herself -- is the most desolating.

The strength and power of a country depend absolutely on the quantity of good men and women in it.

It is physically impossible for a well-educated, intellectual, or brave man to make money the chief object of his thoughts.

The greatest efforts of the race have always been traceable to the love of praise, as the greatest catastrophes to the love of pleasure.

A life being very short, and the quiet hours of it few, we ought to waste none of them in reading valueless books.

It is not, truly speaking, the labor 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.

Once thoroughly understood, our own knowledge ceases to give us pleasure.