What do we, as a nation, care about books? How much do you think we spend altogether on our libraries, public or private, as compared with what we spend on our horses?
John RuskinThe first duty of government is to see that people have food, fuel, and clothes. The second, that they have means of moral and intellectual education.
John RuskinThe question is not what man can scorn, or disparage, or find fault with, but what he can love, and value, and appreciate.
John RuskinAs unity demanded for its expression what at first might have seemed its opposite--variety; so repose demands for its expression the implied capability of its opposite--energy. It is the most unfailing test of beauty; nothing can be ignoble that possesses it, nothing right that has it not.
John Ruskin