You were made for enjoyment, and the world was filled with things which you will enjoy, unless you are too proud to be pleased with them, or too gras… - John Ruskin

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You were made for enjoyment, and the world was filled with things which you will enjoy, unless you are too proud to be pleased with them, or too grasping to care for what you cannot turn to other account than mere delight. Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless: peacocks and lilies, for instance.

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About John Ruskin

John Ruskin (8 February 1819 – 20 January 1900) was an English author, poet and painter, most famous for his work as art critic and social critic.

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Alternative Names: Kata Phusin Rŏsŭkʻin J. Ruskin John Rosukin Jon Rasukin Dzhon Rëskin Ruskin
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Shorter versions of this quote

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

Additional quotes by John Ruskin

Nor is it only as a sign of greater gentleness or refinement of mind, but as a proof of the best possible direction of this refinement, that the tendency of the Gothic to the expression of vegetative life is to be admired. That sentence of Genesis, 'I have given thee every green herb for meat,' like all the rest of the book, has a profound symbolical as well as literal meaning. It is not merely the nourishment of the body, but the food of the soul, that is intended. The green herb is, of all nature, that which is most essential to the healthy spiritual life of man. Most of us do not need fine scenery; the precipice and the mountain peak are not intended to be seen by all men, — perhaps their power is greatest. over those who are unaccustomed to them. But trees and fields and flowers were made for all, and are necessary for all. God has connected the labour which is essential to the bodily sustenance with the pleasures which are healthiest for the heart; and while He made the ground stubborn, He made its herbage fragrant, and its blossoms fair. The proudest architecture that man can build has no higher honour than to bear the image and recall the memory of that grass of the field which is, at once, the type and the support of his existence; the goodly building is then most glorious when it is sculptured into the likeness of the leaves of Paradise; and the great Gothic spirit, as we showed it to be noble in its disquietude, is also noble in its hold of nature; it is, indeed, like the dove of Noah, in that she found no rest upon the face of the waters, — but like her in this also, 'Lo, in her mouth was an olive branch, plucked off.

One can't be angry when one looks at a Penguin

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