Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts—the book of their deeds, the book of their words, and the book of their art. Not one o… - John Ruskin

Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts - the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art.

You may trust to the truth of my sympathy; but you must remember that I am engaged in the investigation of enormous religious and moral questions, in the history of nations; and that your feelings, or my own, or anybody else's, at any particular moment, are of very little interest to me, — not from want of sympathy, but from the small proportion the individuality bears to the whole subject of my enquiry.

No human face is exactly the same in its lines on each side, no leaf perfect in its lobes, no branch in its symmetry. All admit irregularity as they imply change; and to banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality. All things are literally better, lovelier, and more beloved for the imperfections which have been divinely appointed, that the law of human life may be Effort, and the law of human judgment, Mercy.

To use books rightly, is to go to them for help; to appeal to them when our own knowledge and power fail; to be led by them into wider sight and purer conception than our own, and to receive from them the united sentence of the judges and councils of all time, against our solitary and unstable opinions.