John Ruskin Quote

This week is a busy week for me. I have grading to do. I have caught some sort of cold or flu. I have Christmas shopping to do yet. But I still have time for the quote of the week:

Everybody in this room has been taught to pray daily. 'Thy kingdom come.' Now, if we hear a man swear in the streets, we think it very wrong, and say 'he takes God's name in vain.' But there's a twenty times worse way of taking His name in vain, than that. It is to ask God for what we don't want. He doesn't like that sort of prayer. If you don't want a thing, don't ask for it: such asking is the worst mockery of your King you can mock Him with: the soldiers striking Him on the head with the reed was nothing to that. If you do not wish for His kingdom, don't pray for it. But if you do, you must do more than pray for it; you must work for it. And to work for it, you must know what it is; we have all prayed for it many a day without thinking.
--- John Ruskin, The Crown of the Wild Olive, Lecture I.3.