John Ruskin citáty

strana 2

„Kvalita není nikdy náhoda, vždy je výsledkem inteligentního úsilí.“

„Zahnat nedokonalost znamená zničit výraz, zkontrolovat námahu, ochromit vitalitu.“

„A když jsme potkali lásku, víme, co nám v životě chybělo.“

„Knihy jsou pro lidi tím, čím jsou pro ptáky křídla.“

„Moudrý má tři vlastnosti: že sám koná, co radí konati druhým, že nikdy nejedná proti spravedlnosti a že trpělivě snáší slabosti lidí kolem sebe.“

„Knihy jsou lidem tím, čím jsou perutě ptákům.“

„Moc není dána člověku, aby utlačoval slabého, nýbrž aby ho podporoval a pomáhal mu.“

„Četba je doslova rozhovor s lidmi mnohem moudřejšími a zajímavějšími, než jsou ti, s nimiž se můžeme seznamovat kolem sebe.“

„Úkolem pravé výchovy není jen, abychom přiměli lidi konat dobré skutky, nýbrž aby v nich nacházeli i radost. Nejde jen o to, aby byli čistí, ale aby milovali čistotu. Nejde jen o to, aby byli spravedliví, ale aby po spravedlnosti lačnili a žíznili.“

„Každý člověk užívá práci jiných lidí, a proto, nemá-li být zlodějem, musí se sám namáhati a dávati jiným svou práci za to, co bere od nich.“

„Jest prostota přirozená a jest prostota moudrostí. Ta i ona způsobují lásku a úctu.“

„Moudrost není v sebezapírání, ale v tom, naučit se nalézat radost ve věcech dostupných.“

„Lidská duše je zrcadlo, ve kterém lze zhlédnout obraz božského rozumu.“

„Rozum se zesiluje a zeslabuje čtením právě tak jako tělo čerstvým nebo hnijícím vzduchem.“

„Je mnoho náboženství, ale jen jedna mravnost.“

„Trpělivým čekáním se nikam nedostaneme; jen trpělivou prací.“

„Knihu, kterou stojí za to číst, stojí za to i vlastnit.“

„Abychom se naučili trpělivosti, musíme se téměř tak cvičit, jako když se učíme hudbě, zatím však skoro vždy jsme nepřítomni, když učitel přichází.“

„Vyhledejme, co máme s ostatními společného, ne co nás od nich dělí.“

„Kdekoli začíná hledání pravdy, začíná život; kdekoli přestává toto hledání, život přestává.“

„Ztracený čas nikdy nevrátíš, spáchané zlo nikdy nenapravíš.“

„Pamatujte, že nejkrásnější věci na světě jsou ty nejméně užitečné; například pávy a lilie.“

„Tak jako nemáš jíst jen pro chuť, tak nesmíš číst jen pro zábavu.“

„Mluvit pravdu, to je jako dobře psát - přichází to praxí.“

„Jak strašný by byl svět, kdyby se nerodily ustavičně děti, jež sebou přinášejí možnost dokonalosti a nevinnost.“

„Cesta dobré ženy je skutečně poseta květy, ty však se objeví za šlépějemi, kterými kráčela, a nikoli před nimi.“

„Velký duch, jemuž se nedostává mravního cítění, je pramenem velkých pohrom země.“

„Čtení a psaní nelze nazvat malým vzděláním, když napomáhá lidem, aby byli lepší ke všem tvorům.“

„Zaslouží-li člověk pochvaly, dbejte, abyste mu ji neodepřeli.“

„Aby vás práce bavila potřebujete pro ni být fyzicky a psychicky zdatní, nesmí jí být příliš moc a musíte mít pocit, že jste úspěšní.“

„Není nic podivnějšího, než když lidé uznávají poctivost ve hře, ale nikoliv v práci.“

„Ze všeho zbytečného mrhání lze nejméně dovolit mrhání prací.“

“The highest reward for a man's toil is not what he gets for it but what he becomes by it.”

“All art is but dirtying the paper delicately.”

“When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.”

“There is no wealth but life.”

“Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them.”

“Let every dawn of morning be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close.”

“Remember that the most beautiful things in life are often the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance.”

“Cookery means…English 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.”

“Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort. There must be the will to produce a superior thing.”

“You can only possess beauty through understanding it.”

“Education… is a painful, continual and difficult work to be done in kindness, by watching, by warning,… by praise, but above all -- by example.”

“There is scarcely anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse, and sell a little more cheaply. The person who buys on price alone is this man's lawful prey.”

“Art is not a study of positive reality, it is the seeking for ideal truth.”

“It is not possible to find a landscape, which if painted precisely as it is, will not make an impressive picture. No one knows, till he has tried, what strange beauty and subtle composition is prepared to his hand by Nature.”

“All you have really to do is to keep your back as straight as you can; and not think about what is upon it. The real and essential meaning of "virtue" is that straightness of back.”

“You may either win your peace, or buy it, win it, by resistance to evil, buy it, by compromise with evil.”

“I believe that the root of almost every schism and heresy from which the Christian church has ever suffered, has been the effort of men to earn, rather than to receive, their salvation.”

“When we build, let us think that we build for ever.”

“It is the glistening and softly spoken lie; the amiable fallacy; the patriotic lie of the historian, the provident lie of the politician, the zealous lie of the partisan, the merciful lie of the friend, and the careless lie of each man to himself, that cast that black mystery over humanity, through which we thank any man who pierces, as we would thank one who dug a well in a desert.”

“Of human work none but what is bad can be perfect in its own bad way.”

“Endurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty.”

“There are, indeed, two forms of discontent: one laborious, the other indolent and complaining. We respect the man of laborious desire, but let us not suppose that his restlessness is peace, or his ambition meekness. It is because of the special connection of meekness with contentment that it is promised that the meek shall "inherit the earth." Neither covetous men, nor the Grave, can inherit anything; they can but consume. Only contentment can possess.”

“Of all God's gifts to the sight of man, colour is the holiest, the most divine, the most solemn.”

“In old times, men used their powers of painting to show the objects of faith; in later times, they used the objects of faith that they might show their powers of painting.”

“Suppose any person to be put in possession of a large estate of fruitful land, with rich beds of gold in its gravel; countless herds of cattle in its pastures; houses, and gardens, and storehouses full of useful stores; but suppose, after all, that he could get no servants? In order that he may be able to have servants, some one in his neighbourhood must be poor, and in want of his gold — or his corn. Assume that no one is in want of either, and that no servants are to be had. He must, therefore, bake his own bread, make his own clothes, plough his own ground, and shepherd his own flocks. His gold will be as useful to him as any other yellow pebbles on his estate. His stores must rot, for he cannot consume them. He can eat no more than another man could eat, and wear no more than another man could wear. He must lead a life of severe and common labour to procure even ordinary comforts; he will be ultimately unable to keep either houses in repair, or fields in cultivation; and forced to content himself with a poor man's portion of cottage and garden, in the midst of a desert of waste land, trampled by wild cattle, and encumbered by ruins of palaces, which he will hardly mock at himself by calling "his own."”

“.. the art of becoming 'rich', in the common sense, is not absolutely nor finally the art of accumulating much money for ourselves, but also of contriving that our neighbour shall have less. In accurate terms, it is 'the art of establishing the maximum inequality in your own favour.”

“Inequalities of wealth, unjustly established, have assuredly injured the nation in which they exist during their establishment; and, unjustly directed, they injure it yet more during their existence. But inequalities of wealth justly established, benefit the nation in the course of their establishment; and, nobly used, aid it yet more by their existence.”

“And besides; the problem of land, at its worst, is a bye one; distribute the earth as you will, the principal question remains inexorable, —Who is to dig it? Which of us, in brief word, is to do the hard and dirty work for the rest, and for what pay?</b”

“All violent feelings have the same effect. They produce in us a falseness in all our impressions of external things, which I would generally characterize as the "Pathetic Fallacy."”