Tuesday, September 20, 2011

John Ruskin

We want one man to be always thinking, and another to be always working, and we call one a gentleman, and the other an operative; whereas the workman ought often to be thinking, and the thinker often to be working, and both should be gentlemen, in the best sense. As it is, we make both ungentle, the one envying, the other despising, his brother; and the mass of society is made up of morbid thinkers and miserable workers. Now it is only by labour that thought can be made healthy, and only by thought that labour can be made happy, and the two cannot be separated with impunity 


John Ruskin, The Works of John Ruskin ed. E. T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn (39 vols.) (George Allen, 1903-12) vol. 10, p. 201

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