John Ruskin (8 February 1819 – 20 January 1900) was an English polymath – a writer, lecturer, art historian, art critic, draughtsman and philanthropist of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as art, architecture, political economy, education, museology, geology, botany, ornithology, literature, history, and myth.
Art is not a study of positive reality, it is the seeking for ideal truth.
—Jenny Colgan in The Bookshop on the Corner
In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments — there are consequences.