Frases de John Ruskin

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“A maior recompensa pelo nosso trabalho não é o que nos pagam por ele, mas aquilo em que ele nos transforma.”

“Somente quando encontramos o amor, é que descobrimos o que nos faltava na vida.”

“Reformemos as nossas escolas, e não teremos que reformar grande coisa nas nossas prisões.”

“Acho que a primeira prova da grandeza de um homem é a sua humildade.”

“Podes ganhar a paz ou comprá-la; ganhá-la-ás, resistindo ao mal; comprá-la-ás, aceitando o compromisso com o mal.”

“Para a saúde da mente e do corpo, os homens deveriam enxergar com seus próprios olhos, falar sem megafone, caminhar com sobre os próprios pés em vez de andar sobre rodas, trabalhar e lutar com seus próprios braços, sem artefatos ou máquinas.”

“O homem vendido por outro pode não ser escravo; o que se vendeu a si mesmo, esse é o escravo absoluto.”

“Vigiar para que germinem as sementes ou desabrochem as flores, arfar no arado, ler, pensar, amar, orar; eis a felicidade dos homens.”

“Quando os homens não olham para a natureza, julgam sempre poder melhorá-la.”

“O que Pensamos ou no que Acreditamos não tem Muita Importância! A Única coisa Relevante é o que Fazemos!”

“A felicidade consiste em preparar o futuro, pensando no presente e esquecendo o passado se foi triste.”

“Para que as pessoas possam ser felizes em seus trabalhos, essas três coisas são necessárias: Elas devem ser adequadas ao trabalho; elas não devem trabalhar demais; e elas devem ter uma sensação de sucesso neste trabalho.”

“Lembra-te de que as coisas mais belas do mundo são também as mais inúteis: os pavões e os lírios, por exemplo.”

“A esperança deixa de ser felicidade quando acompanhada de impaciência.”

“Sê justo com alguém e acabarás por amá-lo; mas, se fores injusto com ele, acabarás por odiá-lo.”

“Há uma enorme dificuldade em abrir os olhos das pessoas. Comovê-las e destroçar-lhes a alma, é fácil; difícil é fazer com que a luz lhes penetre o cérebro. Que lucro existe em lhes mudar os sentimentos, se continuam sendo idiotas?”

“Algo como o mau tempo, na verdade, não existe. Existem, sim, vários tipos de bom tempo.”

“Os livros podem ser divididos em dois grupos: aqueles do momento e aqueles de sempre.”

“A qualidade nunca se obtém por acaso; ela é sempre o resultado do esforço inteligente.”

“O resultado final e o objeto da riqueza é produzir o maior número possível de criaturas humanas de pulmões sadios, olhos brilhantes e coração feliz.”

“O caminho da mulher honesta está juncado de flores; mas estas crescem atrás dos seus passos e não na frente.”

“Ao despontar do dia, a melhor oração consiste em pedirmos a aventura de não perder nenhum dos seus instantes.”

“Ninguém que não seja um grande escultor ou pintor pode ser um arquitecto. Se não é um escultor ou pintor, apenas pode ser um construtor.”

“Não manda bem quem tem a ânsia de mandar.”

“As grandes nações escrevem a sua autobiografia em três manuscritos: o livro dos seus feitos, o livro das suas palavras e o livro da sua arte.”

“De todas as coisas que possas usar, a tua expressão é, seguramente, a mais importante.”

“How false is the conception, how frantic the pursuit, of that treacherous phantom which men call Liberty.”

“Christian faith is a grand cathedral, with divinely pictured windows. Standing without you see no glory, nor can possibly imagine any. Nothing is visible but the merest outline of dusky shapes. Standing within all is clear and denned; every ray of light reveals an army of unspeakable splendors.”

“Work first and then rest. Work first, and then gaze, but do not use golden ploughshares, nor bind ledgers in enamel.”

“In great states, children are always trying to remain children, and the parents wanting to make men and women of them. In vile states, the children are always wanting to be men and women, and the parents to keep them children.”

“An unimaginative person can neither be reverent nor kind.”

“What do you suppose makes all men look back to the time of childhood with so much regret (if their childhood has been, in any moderate degree, healthy or peaceful)? That rich charm, which the least possession had for us, was in consequence of the poorness of our treasures.”

“Life without industry is guilt, and industry without art is brutality.”

“Give an earnest-hearted, devoted girl any true work that will make her active in the dawn, and weary at night, with the consciousness that her fellow-creatures have indeed been the better for her day, and the powerless sorrow of her enthusiasm will transform itself into a majesty of radiant and beneficent peace.”

“And thus, in full, there are four classes: the men who feel nothing, and therefore see truly; the men who feel strongly, think weakly, and see untruly (second order of poets); the men who feel strongly, think strongly, and see truly (first order of poets); and the men who, strong as human creatures can be, are yet submitted to influences stronger than they, and see in a sort untruly, because what they see is inconceivably above them. This last is the usual condition of prophetic inspiration.”

“The power which causes the several portions of the plant to help each other, we call life. Much more is this so in an animal. We may take away the branch of a tree without much harm to it; but not the animal's limb. Thus, intensity of life is also intensity of helpfulness — completeness of depending of each part on all the rest. The ceasing of this help is what we call corruption; and in proportion to the perfectness of the help, is the dreadfulness of the loss. The more intense the life has been, the more terrible is its corruption.”

“It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money — that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot — it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.”

“I am far more provoked at being thought foolish by foolish people, than pleased at being thought sensible by sensible people; and the average proportion of the numbers of each is not to my advantage.”

“Levi's station in life was the receipt of custom; and Peter's, the shore of Galilee; and Paul's, the antechambers of the High- Priest,— which "station in life" each had to leave, with brief notice.”

“Ask a great money-maker what he wants to do with his money, — he never knows. He doesn't make it to do anything with it. He gets it only that he may get it. "What will you make of what you have got?" you ask. "Well, I'll get more," he says. Just as at cricket, you get more runs. There's no use in the runs, but to get more of them than other people is the game. So all that great foul city of London there, — rattling, growling, smoking, stinking, — a ghastly heap of fermenting brickwork, pouring out poison at every pore, — you fancy it is a city of work? Not a street of it! It is a great city of play; very nasty play and very hard play, but still play.”

“Labour without joy is base. Labour without sorrow is base. Sorrow without labour is base. Joy without labour is base.”

“Your honesty is not to be based either on religion or policy. Both your religion and policy must be based on it. Your honesty must be based, as the sun is, in vacant heaven; poised, as the lights in the firmament, which have rule over the day and over the night.”

“To invent a story, or admirably and thoroughly tell any part of a story, it is necessary to grasp the entire mind of every personage concerned in it, and know precisely how they would be affected by what happens; which to do requires a colossal intellect: but to describe a separate emotion delicately, it is only needed that one should feel it oneself; and thousands of people are capable of feeling this or that noble emotion, for one who is able to enter into all the feelings of someone sitting on the other side of the table.”

“The infinity of God is not mysterious, it is only unfathomable; not concealed, but incomprehensible; it is a clear infinity, the darkness of the pure unsearchable sea.”

“There is but one question ultimately to be asked respecting every line you draw, Is it right or wrong? If right, it most assuredly is not a "free" line, but an intensely continent, restrained and considered line; and the action of the hand in laying it is just as decisive, and just as "free" as the hand of a first-rate surgeon in a critical incision.”

“I have always found that the less we speak of our intentions, the more chance there is of our realizing them.”

“The work of science is to substitute facts for appearances, and demonstrations for impressions.”

“The world is full of vulgar Purists, who bring discredit on all selection by the silliness of their choice; and this the more, because the very becoming a Purist is commonly indicative of some slight degree of weakness, readiness to be offended, or narrowness of understanding of the ends of things.”

“"The work of men" — and what is that? Well, we may any of us know very quickly, on the condition of being wholly ready to do it. But many of us are for the most part thinking, not of what we are to do, but of what we are to get; and the best of us are sunk into the sin of Ananias, and it is a mortal one — we want to keep back part of the price; and we continually talk of taking up our cross, as if the only harm in a cross was the weight of it — as if it was only a thing to be carried, instead of to be — crucified upon. "They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts."”

“Ignorance, which is contented and clumsy, will produce what is imperfect, but not offensive. But ignorance discontented and dexterous, learning what it cannot understand, and imitating what it cannot enjoy, produces the most loathsome forms of manufacture that can disgrace or mislead humanity.”

“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.”

“Primarily, which is very notable and curious, I observe that men of business rarely know the meaning of the word 'rich'. At least, if they know, they do not in their reasoning allow for the fact, that it is a relative word, implying its opposite 'poor' as positively as the word 'north' implies its opposite 'south'. Men nearly always speak and write as if riches were absolute, and it were possible, by following certain scientific precepts, for everybody to be rich. Whereas riches are a power like that electricity, acting only through inequalities or negations of itself. The force of the guinea you have in your pockets depends wholly on the default of a guinea in your neighbour's pocket. If he did not want it, it would be of no use to you; the degree of power it possesses depends accurately upon the need or desire he has for it,— and the art of making yourself rich, in the ordinary mercantile economist's sense, is therefore equally and necessarily the art of keeping your neighbour poor.”

“There is no wealth but life. Life, including all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest numbers of noble and happy human beings; that man is richest, who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal, and by means of his possessions, over the lives of others.”

“Human work must be done thoroughly and honourably because we are now men; whether we ever expect to be angels, or ever were slugs, being practically no matter.”

“Expression, sentiment, truth to nature, are essential: but all those are not enough. I never care to look at a picture again, if it be ill composed; and if well composed I can hardly leave off looking at it.”