Endurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty.
John RuskinRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Violent feelings distort our perceptions of reality, leading to false impressions.
In this quote, John Ruskin suggests that intense and violent emotions can cloud our judgment and understanding of the world around us. This distortion of perception is what he refers to as 'pathetic fallacy,' a term that describes the attribution of human emotions to nature or inanimate objects. Essentially, when we are consumed by such feelings, our interpretations of our environment become tainted, failing to reflect true reality.
Themes
EmotionsPerceptionViolenceTruthReality
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about how emotions impact decision-making, this quote could be used to highlight the importance of managing feelings.
More from John Ruskin
All quotes βIn 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
Everything is only for a day, both that which remembers and that which is remembered. Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are and to make new things like them. For everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be.
Marcus AureliusRead
Incidentally, one of the most worrying problems in the impact of Western modernity on traditional culture is that it quite rapidly communicates its own indifference or anxiety or even hostility about age and ageing.
Rowan WilliamsRead
The average Christian is so cold and so contented with His wretched condition that there is no vacuum of desire into which the blessed Spirit can rush in satisfying fullness.
Aiden Wilson TozerRead
We used to root for the Indians against the cavalry, because we didn't think it was fair in the history books that when the cavalry won it was a great victory, and when the Indians won it was a massacre.
Dick GregoryRead
Selfishness and fear are at the root of (pro-abortion) legislation...We in the Church have a great struggle to defend life...life is a gift not a threat.
Pope Benedict XviRead
Mass communication, radio, and especially television, have attempted, not without success, to annihilate every possibility of solitude and reflection.
Eugenio MontaleRead