“You must either make a tool of the creature, or a man of him.”

— John Ruskin , book The Stones of Venice

Volume II, chapter VI, section 12.
The Stones of Venice (1853)
Context: You must either make a tool of the creature, or a man of him. You cannot make both. Men were not intended to work with the accuracy of tools, to be precise and perfect in all their actions. If you will have that precision out of them, and make their fingers measure degrees like cog-wheels, and their arms strike curves like compasses, you must unhumanize them. All the energy of their spirits must be given to make cogs and compasses of themselves…. On the other hand, if you will make a man of the working creature, you cannot make him a tool. Let him but begin to imagine, to think, to try to do anything worth doing; and the engine-turned precision is lost at once. Out come all his roughness, all his dulness, all his incapability; shame upon shame, failure upon failure, pause after pause: but out comes the whole majesty of him also; and we know the height of it only when we see the clouds settling upon him.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "You must either make a tool of the creature, or a man of him." by John Ruskin?

John Ruskin 133

English writer and art critic 1819–1900

Related quotes

“You must either make a tool of the creature, or a man of him. You cannot make both. Men were not intended to work with the accuracy of tools, to be precise and perfect in all their actions. If you will have that precision out of them, and make their fingers measure degrees like cog-wheels, and their arms strike curves like compasses, you must unhumanize them. All the energy of their spirits must be given to make cogs and compasses of themselves….On the other hand, if you will make a man of the working creature, you cannot make him a tool. Let him but begin to imagine, to think, to try to do anything worth doing; and the engine-turned precision is lost at once. Out come all his roughness, all his dulness, all his incapability; shame upon shame, failure upon failure, pause after pause: but out comes the whole majesty of him also; and we know the height of it only when we see the clouds settling upon him.”

John Ruskin book The Stones of Venice

Volume II, chapter VI, section 12
The Stones of Venice (1853)

“A man, a real man, must never be an agent, a tool, or a gambler—acting for himself or for others—he must employ such. A real man—a financier—was never a tool. He used tools. He created. He led.”

Theodore Dreiser book The Financier

Source: The Financier (1912), Ch. VI

“Work is not mankind’s curse, but his blessing. A man becomes a man through labor. It elevates him, makes him great and aware, raises him above all other creatures.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

Source: 1930s, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (1932)

“Man [is a] tool-making animal.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

Quoted by James Boswell in The Life of Samuel Johnson, April 7, 1778 https://books.google.de/books?id=nuINAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA199&dq=tool-making (1791).
Decade unclear

“The Ymir and Kong before him are both creatures wrenched from their natural environment against their will and finally killed by man. Although these creatures must always die, they should go out with a touch of pathos.”

Ray Harryhausen (1920–2013) American animator

Source: An Animated Life (2003), p. 98

“I think that others can drive a creature to naughtiness, always accusing and blaming them. After a while it must make the creature unhappy and drive him… to be naughty, because nobody expects them to be good…”

Brian Jacques book Outcast of Redwall

Source: Outcast of Redwall

“Every relationship starts out with a dream of what you think it's going to be, and you either have the tool kit when you get to the hard spots where you'll make it through, or you need to move on.”

Susan Sarandon (1946) American actress

As quoted in "Susan Sarandon On 'Jeff Who Lives At Home'" in The Daily Beast (16 March 2012) http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/16/susan-sarandon-on-jeff-who-lives-at-home-limbaugh-the-gop-tim-robbins-and-more
Quote

“Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow-creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.”

Clive Staples Lewis book Mere Christianity

Book III, Chapter 4, "Morality and Psychoanalysis"
Mere Christianity (1952)

“The tool that is so dull that you cannot cut yourself on it is not likely to be sharp enough to be either useful or helpful.”

John Tukey The Technical Tools of Statistics

The Technical Tools of Statistics. The American Statistician 34 (1). Online at https://www.jstor.org/stable/2682374

“If you would work any man, you must either know his nature and fashions, and so lead him; or his ends, and so persuade him or his weakness and disadvantages, and so awe him or those that have interest in him, and so govern him. In dealing with cunning persons, we must ever consider their ends, to interpret their speeches; and it is good to say little to them, and that which they least look for.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Negotiating
Essays (1625)
Context: If you would work any man, you must either know his nature and fashions, and so lead him; or his ends, and so persuade him or his weakness and disadvantages, and so awe him or those that have interest in him, and so govern him. In dealing with cunning persons, we must ever consider their ends, to interpret their speeches; and it is good to say little to them, and that which they least look for. In all negotiations of difficulty, a man may not look to sow and reap at once; but must prepare business, and so ripen it by degrees.

“You must either make a tool of the creature, or a man of him.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

John Ruskin 133

Related quotes

Related topics