The great cry that rises from all our manufacturing cities, louder than the furnace blast, is all in very deed for this — that we manufacture everything there except men. – John Ruskin
All that we call ideal in Greek or any other art, because to us it is false and visionary, was, to the makers of it, true and existent. – John Ruskin
There is never vulgarity in a whole truth, however commonplace. It may be unimportant or painful. It cannot be vulgar. Vulgarity is only in concealment of truth, or in affectation. – John Ruskin
No art can be noble which is incapable of expressing thought, and no art is capable of expressing thought which does not change. – John Ruskin
Colonial system, public debts, heavy taxes, protection, commercial wars, etc., these offshoots of the period of manufacture swell to gigantic proportions during the period of infancy of large-scale industry. The birth of the latter is celebrated by a vast, Hero-like slaughter of the innocents. – Karl Marx