A Ruskin Quote for Designers...  

So how would Charles Eames...
So how would Charles Eames have put food on the table had he decided to sit on his creations?

I'd like...
To a see a return to bartering.

As you know my English is not up to par...
?but I always understood the quote not as "living off" but "living by" in the same sense as the biblical words: "Men can not live by bread alone?" In other words, we can not give meaning to our lives just by exchanging goods, but producing them can give meaning to our lives. In a time were commerce and growth in commerce largely exceeds growth in production; which means that we exchange far more products than we make. The quote has become more pertinent than ever.
I do not think that Charles Eames would have had a problem with that.

Off base, koen...
The quote is quite simply flawed. Production without exchange yields no return. Reading into the quote one can formulate any message which is convenient. However, you are mistaken on two points.
First of all, the quote states that man lives by producing(work). If we are to take an abstract approach to this thesis, then one can possibly accept your interpretation. However, the flaw of this statement is its abstraction. If one has nothing to trade, then there is no opportunity for trade in the first place which in turn translates to no means of sustaining homeostasis. And if one does indeed produce a good which others deem valuable, the means of living then becomes the trade of said good, whether it be for food or other goods or currency. So you see, this is nothing more than an idealistic statement. Furthermore, this is a quote artsy elitists appreciate for its emotion evoking nature. Nothing else.
Secondly, your biblical reference of 'man cannot live by bread alone' is another misinterpretation. The verse reads(in most translations from the mouth of Christ), "Man shall not live on bread alone." It is translated 'by' in some translations I believe but not many. But those two words are not so far away in meaning. It's 'shall not' in contrast to 'cannot' and the absence of 'alone' to finish that clearly separates the two. And context blatantly renders your point mute. This famous line is taken from the gospel of Luke in which Jesus has willingly been led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit for forty days to be tempted by Lucifer himself(The Temptation of Christ). During this dialogue Satan scoffs at Him saying, "If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread." In His hunger, He repels the urge to abuse His supernatural abilities and replies saying, "Man shall not live on bread alone." Again, this is a statement from the mouth of Christ with a clear message and a clear target. Ruskin's is a quote aimed at an issue of self interest stated quite poorly when analyzed.

Lunchbox...
Ruskin wrote clearly.
He meant what he said.
Koen interpreted it correctly.
It is irrelevant whether Ruskin misunderstood the intent of the Biblical passage, or even misquoted it entirely.
It only matters what Ruskin meant.
Fortunately, quite a lot of Ruskin's writing bears witness to his meaning.
Ruskin wrote extensively that he thought the industrial revolution dehumanized people.
Ruskin wrote extensively that he thought that the master craftsmen tradition was very important and was being devalued and lost.
Ruskin expressed on many occassions that he thought the act of making things was a crucial part of human fulfillment.
Finally, with all due respect to your biblical scholarship, however stellar it may be, John Ruskin was:
a) one of the great minds of the 19th Century;
b) educated at Oxford in the mid 19th Century, when a thorough working knowledge of the bible was considered one of the necessities of a scholar;
c) fluent in Latin and Greek and I believe even some Hebrew, which were some of the languages the ancient biblical texts were written in early on and passed down through the millenia through (there were, of course, myriad rewrites and additions and subtractions of books of the bible done by mere mortals working without any claimed intervention by god);
d) a scholar with likely access to at least some of these ancient texts held at that time in England and the curiosity and intellect to study some of them; and
e)later a professor at Oxford for a couple of stints.
I know its never wise to except anything at face value when it comes to Biblical scholarship. The Bible has, afterall, been rewritten many times by many hired writers serving the agendas of emperors, pontiffs, kings, republicans, corporatists, recent fundamentalists, and what have you. And it is almost impossible to tell what the hell in the Bible is an original part of the Bible and what is something added subsequently to please some earthly influence later. And of course, we can only guess at what may have been left out. Who knows? There could easily have been a Book that recounted a fling between Jesus and Mary Magdalene that some prude somewhere along the way just tossed on the camel dung heap.
Regardless, I think old Professor Ruskin deserves at least a little more respect and credit than you are giving him.
For, as I already indicated, one can understand the meaning of Ruskin's quote from his other writing, whether or not he was misquoting the Bible, or quoting from some 19th Century ur-graphic novelization of it, or making the quote up out of thin air.
But thank you for weighing in regardless. And I am always willing to read further explanation of ways in which I am fooling myself. I am, afterall, always the last person to discover such things. 🙂

All fine and dandy, dc...
Believe what you want. And again, one can interpret what one wants to interpret. But the words are what they are. Nothing more than a regurgitation, poorly executed at that. Whatever you think of Ruskin, there's no arguing that.

I reread your response...
I now realize you were finding error in Koen's use of a bible quote, not John Ruskin's. My apologies for confusing that.
I will allow the good Mr. de Winter to defend himself on that, though I will mention that debating the exact meaning of scripture is problematic, since the rewrites and translations always change the meaning even within a given century, to say nothing of over 2k years. But that is up to you two.
I remain unpersuaded by your claim that Ruskin's quote betrays defective reasoning. You are right that his quote expresses his personal point of view and a fairly subjective and qualitative one, at that.
You lose me, however, when you say that producing things involves trading things and so that makes the distinction he makes between making things and being a trader somehow fuzzy.
Mastercraftsmen make things and, as you note, trade them.
Traders of things only trade them, as I note, they do not make them.
Ruskin says people who make things can live, as in being fully alive, as I note.
Ruskin says people who only trade things cannot live, as in cannot be fully alive, as I note.
One may disagree with the premise, but I see no fuzziness in meaning,or lack of clarity in expression.
And in my experience, the master craftsmen I have met have seemed much more alive to me, than the various kinds of traders and collectors I have met.
Among the traders and collectors I have known, there seems to be a displacement activity at work that I do not see in master craftsmen. Traders and collectors seem to displace the inability to make a thing with ownership of it. They also tend to displace the inability to make a thing with act of profitting from it. This is not always the case, but I have seen it often enough to notice it and contemplate it.
Master craftsmen can be afflicted by unhealty dynamics, too. They can be burdened with perfectionism. They can be embittered by not achieving as much success as their peers. And so on.
But again, they just seem more alive, more vital and often happier than traders and collectors. Their level of self-actualization on old Maslow's hierarchy seems higher than most the traders and collectors.
And of course there can be healthy traders and collectors. They can know that trading and collecting is what they are good at and be satisfied with doing it well.
But in balance, on the whole of my anecdotal experience, the master craftsmen seem the happier and more fulfilled group and the traders and collectors seem the lesser.
There is no conflation here.

Ah, Lunchbox, my good person...
Your last post finally clarifies the logic of your argument.
What DC thinks is belief.
What Lunchbox thinks is correct.
Then Lunchbox quickly follows with "there can be no argument."
This must be one of the oldest forms of argument.
I can see why it may be tactically tempting in this case, but that does not make it persuasive.
Still I remain open to further instruction to see the error in my understanding.

No, my friend...
I said that quite simply the quote was a regurgitation of the famous verse, poorly executed at that. Of that, there can be no argument. So which would you argue?
1. Ruskin made his statement before the Book was written?
or
2. It is a flawless statement of both perfect clarity and originality?

is the
'cannot not' in the OP a typo ?

Ah, my good Lunchbox...
I have never had as much difficulty understanding John Ruskin, as I am having understanding you. I apologize.
Obviously, what I would (and now do, of course)argue is that it never made any difference whether he was quoting from the Bible or not. 🙂
In fact, it would not make any difference if he had just made up the quote out of his own head, or if he claimed that he heard it from a burning bush, now would it? 😉
The question is: does the epigram convey any useful insight?
And we must remind ourselves once again that for an epigram to be useful it does not have to hold in every instance, just in most instances, or even just in enough to be useful. Heuristics, you know.
Who knows? Maybe it does not convey any useful insight at all. Maybe it is the rant of a mad man. You do know that Ruskin had a few nervous breakdowns, right?
Your serve.