john ruskin

“ It is better to lose your pride with someone you love rather than to lose that someone you love with your useless pride. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If a book is worth reading, it is worth buying. ”

“ Nothing is ever done beautifully which is done in rivalship: or nobly, which is done in pride. ”

“ Every great man is always being helped by everybody; for his gift is to get good out of all things and all persons. ”

“ A book worth reading is worth owning. ”

“ If 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 verses. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality. ”

“ Cookery meansEnglish thoroughness, French art, and Arabian hospitality; it means the knowledge of all fruits and herbs and balms and spices; it means carefulness, inventiveness, and watchfulness. ”