Quotation added by staff

Why not add this quote to your bookmarks?

  ...of them. Language, I said, is only clear when it is sympathetic. You can, in truth, understand a man's word only by understanding his temper. Your own word is also as of an unknown tongue to him unless he understands yours. And it is this which makes the art of language, if any one is to be chosen separately from the rest, that which is fittest for the instrument of a gentleman's education. To teach the meaning of a word thoroughly, is to teach the nature of the spirit that coined it; The secret of language is the secret of sympathy and its full charm is possible only to the gentle.   And thus the principles of beautiful speech have all been fixed by sincere and kindly speech. On the laws which have been determined by sincerity, false speech, apparently beautiful, may afterwards be constructed; but all such utterance, whether in oration or poetry, is not only without permanent power, but it is destructive of the principles it has usurped. So long as no words are uttered but in faithfulness, so long the art of language goes on exalting itself; but the moment it is...   Ruskin, John

Excerpt from Lectures on Art Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 · This quote is about language · Search on Google Books to find all references and sources for this quotation.

• Biography
• 2 Fans
• This quote in blogs