No good work whatever can be perfect, and the demand for perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art. - John Ruskin

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No good work whatever can be perfect, and the demand for perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art.

English
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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

Pen Names: Kata Phusin
Alternative Names: Rŏsŭkʻin J. Ruskin John Rosukin Jon Rasukin Dzhon Rëskin Ruskin

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Additional quotes by John Ruskin

..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'.

And observe, you are put to stern choice in this matter. You must either make a tool of the creature, or a man of him. You cannot make both. Men were not intended to work with the accuracy of tools, to be precise and perfect in all their actions. If you will have that precision out of them, and make their fingers measure degrees like cogwheels, and their arms strike curves like compasses, you must unhumanize them. All the energy of their spirits must be given to make cogs and compasses of themselves....On the other hand, if you will make a man of the working creature, you cannot make a tool. Let him but begin to imagine, to think, to try to do anything worth doing; and the engine-turned precision is lost at once. Out come all his roughness; all his dullness, all his incapability; shame upon shame, failure upon failure, pause after pause: but out comes the whole majesty of him also, and we know the height of it only, when we see the clouds settling upon him.

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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.

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