You might sooner get lightning out of incense smoke than true action or passion out of your modern English religion. – John Ruskin
Education is the leading of human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them. – John Ruskin
Every great person is always being helped by everybody for their gift is to get good out of all things and all persons. – John Ruskin
The principle of all successful effort is to try to do not what is absolutely the best, but what is easily within our power, and suited for our temperament and condition. – John Ruskin
Fiction is a kind of compassion-generating machine that saves us from sloth. Is life kind or cruel? Yes, Literature answers. Are people good or bad? You bet, says Literature. But unlike other systems of knowing, Literature declines to eradicate one truth in favor of another. – George Saunders