... no human actions ever were intended by the Maker of men to be guided by balances of expediency, but by balances of justice.
John RuskinHow long most people would look at the best book before they would give the price of a large turbot for it?
John RuskinHow false is the conception, how frantic the pursuit, of that treacherous phantom which men call Liberty: most treacherous, indeed, of all phantoms; for the feeblest ray of reason might surely show us, that not only its attainment, but its being, was impossible..... There is no such thing in the universe. There can never be. The stars have it not; the earth has it not; the sea has it not; and we men have the mockery and semblance of it only for our heaviest punishment.
John Ruskin