Endurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty.
John RuskinRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Books should be used as resources to expand our understanding and correct our misconceptions.
In this quote, John Ruskin emphasizes the importance of books in guiding individuals toward greater knowledge and clarity. He suggests that when our own understanding falters, we can seek wisdom from literature, which serves as a collective repository of human thought and judgment. This appeal to books allows us to transcend our limited perspectives and align ourselves with the insights of history's greatest minds.
Themes
BooksKnowledgeWisdomUnderstandingEducation
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech on the value of education, one might quote Ruskin to emphasize the importance of literature.
More from John Ruskin
All quotes →In health of mind and body, men should see with their own eyes, hear and speak without trumpets, walk on their feet, not on wheels, and work and war with their arms, not with engine-beams, nor rifles warranted to kill twenty men at a shot before you can see them.
John RuskinRead
You talk of the scythe of Time, and the tooth of Time: I tell you, Time is scytheless and toothless; it is we who gnaw like the worm - we who smite like the scythe. It is ourselves who abolish - ourselves who consume: we are the mildew, and the flame.
John RuskinRead
To be able to ask a question clearly is two-thirds of the way to getting it answered.
John RuskinRead
See that your children be taught, not only the labors of the earth, but the loveliness of it.
John RuskinRead
A little thought and a little kindness are often worth more than a great deal of money.
John RuskinRead
Similar quotes
A classical work doesn't ever have to be understood entirely. But those who are educated and who are still educating themselves must desire to learn more and more from it.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich SchlegelRead
Routinely, when I finish a book, I think 'What will I do? Where will I get an idea?' And a kind of low-level panic sets in.
Philip RothRead
In ninth grade, I came up with a new form of rebellion. I hadn't been getting good grades, but I decided to get all A's without taking a book home. I didn't go to math class, because I knew enough and had read ahead, and I placed within the top 10 people in the nation on an aptitude exam.
Bill GatesRead
As a people, we value family, education and success. Hunger is an enemy to all three. Scientific studies have demonstrated that even brief periods of hunger can permanently inhibit a child's mental, emotional and physical growth. Kids who are hungry do poorly in school and are unlikely to grow into productive adults. For families, experiencing hunger means living in a world of isolation and shame. Caring citizens must put an end to this disgrace.
Ted DansonRead
A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.
Theodore RooseveltRead
He who experiments must, while doing so, divest himself of every preconception. It is clear then that if we wish to make use of a method of experimental psychology, the first thing necessary is to renounce all former creeds and to proceed by means of the method in the search for truth.
Maria MontessoriRead