#imp

The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas - uncertainty, progress, change - into crimes. ↗

— Salman Rushdie

#because #change #conservative #crimes #culture

I used to say, 'There is a God-shaped hole in me.' For a long time I stressed the absence, the hole. Now I find it is the shape which has become more important. ↗

— Salman Rushdie

#become #find #hole #i #important

The acceptance that all that is solid has melted into the air, that reality and morality are not givens but imperfect human constructs, is the point from which fiction begins. ↗

— Salman Rushdie

#air #begins #constructs #fiction #givens

Such is the miraculous nature of the future of exiles: what is first uttered in the impotence of an overheated apartment becomes the fate of nations. ↗

— Salman Rushdie

#becomes #exiles #fate #first #future

It is far more difficult to be simple than to be complicated; far more difficult to sacrifice skill and easy execution in the proper place, than to expand both indiscriminately. ↗

— John Ruskin

#complicated #difficult #easy #execution #expand

I believe the right question to ask, respecting all ornament, is simply this; was it done with enjoyment, was the carver happy while he was about it? ↗

— John Ruskin

#ask #believe #carver #done #enjoyment

It is impossible, as impossible as to raise the dead, to restore anything that has ever been great or beautiful in architecture. That which I have insisted upon as the life of the whole, that spirit which is given only by the hand and eye of the workman, can never be recalled. ↗

— John Ruskin

#architecture #beautiful #been #dead #ever

Modern education has devoted itself to the teaching of impudence, and then we complain that we can no longer control our mobs. ↗

— John Ruskin

#control #devoted #education #impudence #itself

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

#cannot #commonplace #concealment #however #may

The work of science is to substitute facts for appearances, and demonstrations for impressions. ↗

— John Ruskin

#demonstrations #facts #impressions #science #substitute