John-Ruskin

All our history proves that God may he understood, not by reasoning, but by submission to Him and obeyance to His laws. Only by doing this can we understand His will on earth.

Those who give second place to God in their hearts do not give Him a place at all.

False shame is the devil’s favorite emotion; it is even worse than false pride. Pride can support evil, but false shame stops goodness.

One of the major obstacles impeding any positive future change in our lives is that we are too busy with our current work or activity. Levi quit his tax-work, Peter stopped fishing at a lake, Paul ceased being a priest. They all left their jobs because they thought it was necessary.

Reading and writing do not educate if they do not help people to become kinder to all animals.

The soul is a mirror in which you can see the reflection of divine intellect.

Beware of those who want to convince you that it is impossible to strive for good just because it is impossible to reach perfection.

Knowledge is limitless, and the most scholarly and educated person is as far from true knowledge as an uneducated peasant.

Not only is real science not hostile to religion, in fact real science always supports it.

The way to true knowledge does not go through soft grass covered with flowers. To find it, a person must climb steep mountains.

Science fulfills its purpose, not when it explains the reasons for the dark spots on the sun, but when it understands and explains the laws of our own life, and the consequences of violating these laws.

The world would be a terrible place without newborn children, who bring with them innocence, and the hope of man’s further perfection.

Do not bother about what will happen someday, somewhere, in the far away distance, in a future time; think and be very attentive to what happens now, here, in this place.

You cannot sell your talent, your genius; as soon as you do, you are a prostitute. You can sell your work, but. not. your soul.

Truth can be understood only by waiting and watching, and when you get one truth, two more will appear before you.

You can torture people; you can treat them as if they were animals; you can abuse them in all ways; you can kill them as if they were summer flies. But people will remain free in the highest sense because they have eternal souls.

Wise consumption is much more complicated than wise production. What five people will produce, one person can very easily consume, and the question for each individual and for every nation is not how are we to produce, but how our products are to be consumed.

Power is given to a person, not to oppress the weak, but to support and to help the weak.

Remember that you cannot do anything wonderful driven by competition; you cannot do anything noble from pride.

A person in our society cannot sleep without paying for the place where he sleeps; he has the right to have free air or water or sunlight only when he is on the road. The only right he has is to walk along this road; until he becomes tired, or he cannot walk, he has to continue walking. The bodies of men and women, and even more importantly, their children, should not be bought and sold. So too the water, the land and air, because these things are necessary conditions of this existence.

All great thoughts are living thoughts, and they can grow and be changed. And they change and grow as a tree, and not as a cloud.

You must know firmly and feel deeply that you should dedicate every day to the good of your fellows, doing everything you can for them. You have to do it and not talk about it.

A wise man always finds some support for himself in everything, because his gift is in obtaining goodness from everything.

Great deeds have very remote consequences.

Do not seek pleasure everywhere, but always be ready find it.

Look at all of your knowledge as a gift, as a means of helping other people. A strong and wise person uses his gifts to support other people.

Work, the process of work in itself, is the most important thing for us, and its reward should be of minor importance; if it is, you please your creator, God. If the reward is of major importance for you, and the work itself of minor importance, then you are the slave of the reward and its creator, the devil, and even the lowest and the least among all devils.

The will of God for us is to live in happiness and to take an interest in the lives of others.

We have to fulfill honestly and irreproachably the work destined for us. It does not matter whether we hope that we will become angels some day, or believe that we have originated from slugs.