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Quote by John Ruskin

“The names of great painters are like passing-bells: in the name of Velasquez you hear sounded the fall of Spain; .in the name of Titian, that of Venice; in the name of Leonardo, that of Milan; in the name of Raphael, that of Rome. And there is profound justice in this, for in proportion to the nobleness of the power is the guilt of its use for purposes vain or vile; and hitherto the greater the art, the more surely has it been used, and used solely, for the decoration of pride or the provoking of sensuality.”

Quote by John Ruskin

Author

John Ruskin was an influential British art critic, writer, and social critic. Known for his profound insights into art, architecture, and social issues, he had a significant impact on the aesthetics and culture of the Victorian era. more

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“The power of painter or poet to describe what he calls an ideal thing depends upon its being to him not an ideal but a real thing. No man ever did or ever will work well but either from actual sight or sight of faith.”

Men Wells Art Real Poet Depends Ideals Sight Painter Real Things

Book:Modern Painters: (pt.4) Modern painters of many things

Source: Modern Painters: (pt.4) Modern painters of many things

“It is excellent discipline for an author to feel that he must say all he has to say in the fewest possible words, or his reader is sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words, or his reader will certainly misunderstand them. Generally, also, a downright fact may be told in a plain way; and we want downright facts at present more than anything else.”

Way Want Feels May Facts Reader Discipline Excellent Skip Brevity

Book:A Joy Forever

Source: A Joy Forever

“Candlesticks and incense not being portable into the maintop, the sailor perceives these decorations to be, on the whole, inessential to a maintop mass. Sails must be set and cables bent, be it never so strict a saint's day; and it is found that no harm comes of it. Absolution on a lee-shore must be had of the breakers, it appears, if at all; and they give plenary and brief without listening to confession.”

Ifs Giving Whole Found Listening Mass Saint Harm Perceive Shore Confession Sail Strict Bent Ceremony Cables Sailor Decoration Incense Absolution

Book:Selections from the Writings of John Ruskin

Source: Selections from the Writings of John Ruskin

“Men say their pinnacles point to heaven. Why, so does every tree that buds, and every bird that rises as it sings. Men say their aisles are good for worship. Why, so is every mountain glen and rough sea-shore. But this they have of distinct and indisputable glory,--that their mighty walls were never raised, and never shall be, but by men who love and aid each other in their weakness.”

Source: The Two Paths: Being Lectures on Art, and Its Application to Decoration and Manufacture, Delivered in 1858-9

“Our large trading cities bear to me very nearly the aspect of monastic establishments in which the roar of the mill-wheel and the crane takes the place of other devotional music, and in which the worship of Mammon and Moloch is conducted with a tender reverence and an exact propriety; the merchant rising to his Mammon matins, with the self-denial of an anchorite, and expiating the frivolities into which he maybe beguiled in the course of the day by late attendance at Mammon vespers.”

Source: The Political Economy of Art: Being the Substance (with Additions) of Two Lectures Delivered at Manchester, July 10th and 13th, 1857

“Color is, in brief terms, the type of love. Hence it is especially connected with the blossoming of the earth; and again, with its fruits; also, with the spring and fall of the leaf, and with the morning and evening of the day, in order to show the waiting of love about the birth and death of man.”

Source: pt. VI: Of leaf beauty. pt. VII: Of cloud beauty. pts. VIII-IX: Of ideas of relation

“What is in reality cowardice and faithlessness, we call charity, and consider it the part of benevolence sometimes to forgive men's evil practice for the sake of their accurate faith, and sometimes to forgive their confessed heresy for the sake of their admirable practice.”

Men Sometimes Reality Evil Practice Forgiving Charity Sake Cowardice Accurate Heresy Benevolence Admirable Forgive Me

Book:The Stones of Venice

Source: The Stones of Venice

“There is no solemnity so deep, to a right-thinking creature, as that of dawn.”

Thinking Creatures Dawn Solemnity

Author:John Ruskin

“Men are merely on a lower or higher stage of an eminence, whose summit is God's throne infinitely above all; and there is just as much reason for the wisest as for the simplest man being discontent with his position, as respects the real quantity of knowledge he possesses.”

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Book:The fall

Source: The fall

“Drunkenness is not only the cause of crime, but it is crime; and if any encourage drunkenness for the sake of the profit derived from the sale of drink, they are guilty of a form of moral assassination as criminal as any that has ever been practiced by the braves of any country or of any age.”

Ifs Country Age Form Causes Moral Crime Drink Brave Sake Profit Criminals Guilty Drunkenness Assassination

Author:John Ruskin