3 quotations linked to Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne by or associated with John Ruskin, with source notes, explanations and related topics.
Labor, vocation, leisure, social organization, education, responsibility, time and the limits of excessive or misdirected work.
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“That is my right work”
The phrase names the work Ruskin believes best fits his actual abilities, separating a personally appropriate vocation from duties he feels forced to assume by public distress.
Source note: Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne, Letter XIII; Project Gutenberg #31196. “Right work” refers locally to Ruskin’s painting and study of nature, so the record is about vocation and fit rather than a universal career prescription.
“Labor without joy is base.”
Ruskin rejects an account of labor that treats ceaseless exertion as sufficient in itself, insisting that a right human life must make room for more than work alone.
Source note: Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne, Letter IV; Project Gutenberg #31196. Ruskin pairs labor with sorrow and joy and criticizes both idleness and lives reduced entirely to physical work.
“the crippling of my temper, and waste of my time.”
Ruskin distinguishes financial cost from the cost imposed on temperament and finite time, recognizing that obligations can consume attention and working capacity as well as money.
Source note: Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne, Letter XIX; Project Gutenberg #31196. Ruskin is describing the personal burden of repeated appeals for aid, not issuing a general rule against helping others.