As long as there are cold and nakedness in the land around you, so long can there be no question at all but that splendor of dress is a crime.
John RuskinWe are, after all, only trustees of the wealth we possess. Without the community and its resources... there would be little wealth for anyone.
John RuskinIf we pretend to have reached either perfection or satisfaction, we have degraded ourselves and our work. God's work only may express that, but ours may never have that sentence written upon it, Behold it was very good.
John RuskinWe have seen when the earth had to be prepared for the habitation of man, a veil, as it were, of intermediate being was spread between him and its darkness, in which were joined in a subdued measure, the stability and insensibility of the earth, and the passion and perishing of mankind.
John RuskinWhen we build ... let it not be for present delights nor for present use alone. Let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for, and let us think ... that a time is to come when these stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say as they look upon the labor, and the wrought substance of them, See! This our fathers did for us!
John Ruskin