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Quotations from Ruskin

Elderly John Ruskin - engraving by W.Burton

"When men are rightly occupied their amusement grows out of their work, as the colour-petals out of a fruitful flower; when they are faithfully helpful and compassionate, all their emotions become steady, deep, perpetual, and vivifying to the soul as the natural pulse to the body...
Mighty of heart, mighty of mind--"magnanimous"--to be this is, indeed, to be great in life; to become this increasingly is, indeed, to "advance in life"--in life itself, not the trappings of it....He only is advancing in life whose heart is getting softer, whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is entering into Living peace... "
"Of Kings' Treasuries," in Sesame and Lilies (1864)
LE 18: 97, 99-100

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"You will find, if you look into your own hearts, that the two great delights, in loving and praising, and the two great thirsts, to be loved and praised, are the roots of all that is strong in the deeds of men, and happy in their repose."  -  Sesame and Lilies.

"Be assured that no great change for the better can ever be easily accomplished, nor quickly;  nor by impulsive, ill-regulated effort, nor by bad men;  nor even by good men, without much suffering"  -  Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne.

"Much education sums itself in making men economize their words, and understand them"
- Munera Pulveris.
"To be able to ask a question clearly is two thirds of the way to getting it answered."  - Proserpina.

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"That in which the perfect being speaks must also have the perfect being to listen. I am not to spend my utmost, and give all my strength and life to my work, while you, spectator or hearer, will give me only the attention of half your soul.
You must be all mine as I am all yours, it is the only condition in which we can meet each other.  All your faculties, all that is in you of greatest and best, must be awake in you, or I have no reward"   
Ruskin-
Stones of Venice, vol 4, the Conclusion, para 21.

"To-day"
(Mr Ruskin's Motto)

"Thou knowest not what a day may bring forth"
Proverbs, xxvii:1

To-day unsullied comes to thee newborn.
Tomorrow is not thine;
The sun may cease to shine
For thee, ere earth shall greet its morn.

Be earnest, then, in thought and deed,
Nor fear approaching night:
Calm comes with evening light
And hope, and peace.   Thy duty heed
                                                   "To-day".
John Ruskin's bedroom at Brantwood, Coniston.

John Ruskin's bedroom at Brantwood, Coniston, where many of his favourite pictures by J.M.W.Turner were kept.

Visit the Brantwood website:  www.brantwood.org.uk

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"He who makes religion his first object, makes it his whole object:  he has no other work in the world than God's work."  Lectures on Architecture and Painting.
"Anything which makes religion its second object, makes religion no object.  God will put up with a great many things in the human heart, but there is one thing He will not put up with in it - a second place.  He who offers God a second place offers Him no place."   Ruskin -Lectures on Architecture and Painting.

"An infinitude of tenderness is the chief gift and inheritance of all the truly great men"  - Ruskin (The Two Paths)

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