John Ruskin Quotes & Sayings

What we think or what we know or what we believe is in the end of little consequence. The only thing of consequence is what we do — John Ruskin

There is never vulgarity in a whole truth, however commonplace. It may be unimportant or painful. It cannot be vulgar. Vulgarity is only in concealment of truth, or in affectation. — John Ruskin

On the whole, it is patience which makes the final difference between those who succeed or fail in all things. All the greatest people have it in an infinite degree, and among the less, the patient weak ones always conquer the impatient strong. — John Ruskin

Occult Theft,
Theft which hides itself even from itself, and is legal, respectable, and cowardly,
corrupts the body and soul of man, to the last fibre of them. And the guilty Thieves of Europe, the real sources of all deadly war in it, are the Capitalists — John Ruskin

You can only possess beauty through understanding it. — John Ruskin

The weakest among us has a gift, however seemingly trivial, which is peculiar to him, and which, worthily used, will be a gift also to his race forever. — John Ruskin

I do not believe that any peacock envies another peacock his tail, because every peacock is persuaded that his own tail is the finest in the world. The consequence of this is that peacocks are peaceable birds. — John Ruskin

Civilization is the making of civil persons. — John Ruskin

Men have commonly more pleasure in the criticism which hurts than in that which is innocuous, and are more tolerant of the severity which breaks hearts and ruins fortunes than of that which falls impotently on the grave. — John Ruskin

Science lives only in quiet places, and with odd people, mostly poor. — John Ruskin

I tell you (dogmatically, if you like to call it so, knowing it well) a square inch of man's engraving is worth all the photographs that were ever dipped in acid ... Believe me, photography can do against line engraving just what Madame Tussaud's wax-work can do against sculpture. That and no more. (1865) — John Ruskin

Greater completion marks the progress of art, absolute completion usually its decline. — John Ruskin

Don't just look at buildings ... watch them. — John Ruskin

It does not much matter that an individual loses two or three hundred pounds in buying a bad picture, but it is to be regretted that a nation should lose two or three hundred thousand in raising a ridiculous building. — John Ruskin

The whole difference between a man of genius and other men, it has been said a thousand times, and most truly, is that the first remains in great part a child, seeing with the large eyes of children, in perpetual wonder, not conscious of much knowledge
conscious, rather of infinite ignorance, and yet infinite power; a fountain of eternal admiration, delight, and creative force within him meeting the ocean of visible and governable things around him. — John Ruskin

In old times men used their powers of painting to show the objects of faith, in later times they use the objects of faith to show their powers of painting. — John Ruskin

No nation can last which has made a mob of itself, however generous at heart. — John Ruskin

What is poetry? The suggestion, by the imagination, of noble grounds for the noble emotions. — John Ruskin

You may assuredly find perfect peace, if you are resolved to do that which your Lord has plainly required
and content that He should indeed require no more of you
than to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with Him. — John Ruskin

That which is required in order to the attainment of accurate conclusions respecting the essence of the Beautiful is nothing morethan earnest, loving, and unselfish attention to our impressions of it. — John Ruskin

We have much studied and much perfected, of late, the great civilized invention of the division of labour; only we give it a false name. It is not, truly speaking, the labour that is divided; but the men. — John Ruskin

And besides; the problem of land, at its worst, is a bye one; distribute the earth as you will, the principal question remains inexorable, Who is to dig it? Which of us, in brief word, is to do the hard and dirty work for the rest, and for what pay? — John Ruskin

Now the basest thought possible concerning man is, that he has no spiritual nature; and the foolishest misunderstanding of him possible is, that he has, or should have, no animal nature. For his nature is nobly animal, nobly spiritual,
coherently and irrevocably so; neither part of it may, but at its peril, expel, despise, or defy the other. — John Ruskin

To follow art for the sake of being a great man, and therefore to cast about continually for some means of achieving position or attracting admiration, is the surest way of ending in total extinction. — John Ruskin

You cannot have good architecture merely by asking people's advice on occasion. All good architecture is the expression of national life and character; and it is produced by a prevalent and eager national taste, or desire for beauty. — John Ruskin

The world is full of vulgar Purists, who bring discredit on all selection by the silliness of their choice; and this the more, because the very becoming a Purist is commonly indicative of some slight degree of weakness, readiness to be offended, or narrowness of understanding of the ends of things. — John Ruskin

Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery. — John Ruskin

No person who is not a great sculptor or painter can be an architect. If he is not a sculptor or painter, he can only be a builder. — John Ruskin

Borrowers are nearly always ill-spenders, and it is with lent money that all evil is mainly done and all unjust war protracted. — John Ruskin

The sculptor must paint with his chisel; half his touches are not to realize, but to put power into, the form. They are touches of light and shadow, and raise a ridge, or sink a hollow, not to represent an actual ridge or hollow, but to get a line of light, or a spot of darkness. — John Ruskin

There is no law of history any more than of a kaleidoscope. — John Ruskin

All great art is the work of the whole living creature, body and soul, and chiefly of the soul. — John Ruskin

The time is probably near when a new system of architectural laws will be developed, adapted entirely to metallic construction. — John Ruskin

Amongst all the mechanical poison that this terrible nineteenth century has poured upon men, it has given us at any rate one antidote - the Daguerreotype. (1845) — John Ruskin

How long most people would look at the best book before they would give the price of a large turbot for it? — John Ruskin

The endurance of monotony has about the same place in a healty mind that the endurance of darkness has: that is to say, as a strong intellect will have pleasure in the solemnities of storm and twilight, and in the broken and mysterious lights that gleam among them, rather than in mere brilliancy and glare, while a frivolous mind will dread the shadow and storm; and as a great man will be ready to endure much darkness of fortune in order to reach greater eminence of power or felicity, while an inferior man will not pay the price; exactly in like manner a great mind will accept, or even delight in, monotony which would be wearisome to an inferior intellect, because it has more patience and power of expectation, and is ready to pay the full price for the great future pleasure of change. — John Ruskin

Science is the knowledge of constant things, not merely of passing events, and is properly less the knowledge of general laws than of existing facts. — John Ruskin

The finer the nature, the more flaws it will show through the clearness of it; and it is a law of this universe that the best things shall be seldomest seen in their best form. — John Ruskin

There was a rocky valley between Buxton and Bakewell?divine as the vale of Tempe; you might have seen the gods there morning and eveningApollo and the sweet Muses of the Light? You enterprised a railroad?you blasted its rocks away? And, now, every fool in Buxton can be at Bakewell in half-an-hour, and every fool in Bakewell at Buxton. — John Ruskin

When men do not love their hearth, nor reverence their thresholds, it is a sign that they have dishonoured both ... Our God is a house-hold God, as well as a heavenly one; He has an altar in every man's dwelling. — John Ruskin

Great art is precisely that which never was, nor will be taught, it is preeminently and finally the expression of the spirits of great men. — John Ruskin

All men who have sense and feeling are being continually helped; they are taught by every person they meet, and enriched by everything that falls in their way. The greatest, is he who has been oftenest aided. Originality is the observing eye. — John Ruskin

I would have, then, our ordinary dwelling-houses built to last, and built to be lovely; as rich and full of pleasantness as may be within and without: ... with such differences as might suit and express each man's character and occupation, and partly his history. — John Ruskin

The highest reward for a man's toil is not what he gets for it but what he becomes by it. — John Ruskin

Temperance, in the nobler sense, does not mean a subdued and imperfect energy; it does not mean a stopping short in any good thing, as in love and in faith; but it means the power which governs the most intense energy, and prevents its acting in way but as it ought. — John Ruskin

The man who says to one, go, and he goeth, and to another, come, and he cometh, has, in most cases, more sense of restraint and difficulty than the man who obeys him. — John Ruskin

It is not, truly speaking, the labour that is divided; but the men: divided into mere segments of men - broken into small fragments and crumbs of life, so that all the little piece of intelligence that is left in a man is not enough to make a pin, or a nail, but exhausts itself in making the point of a pin or the head of a nail. — John Ruskin

One can't be angry when one looks at a Penguin — John Ruskin

So then, men may let their great powers lie dormant, while they employ their mean and petty powers on mean and petty objects; but it is physically impossible to employ a great power, except on a great object. — John Ruskin

Art is not a study of positive reality, it is the seeking for ideal truth. — John Ruskin

English artists are usually entirely ruined by residence in Italy. — John Ruskin

The only absolutely and unapproachably heroic element in the soldier's work seems to be-that he is paid little for it-and regularly. — John Ruskin

I am far more provoked at being thought foolish by foolish people, than pleased at being thought sensible by sensible people; and the average proportion of the numbers of each is not to my advantage. — John Ruskin

Nothing can be beautiful which is not true. — John Ruskin

Multitudes think they like to do evil; yet no man ever really enjoyed doing evil since God made the world. — John Ruskin

The first condition of education is being able to put someone to wholesome and meaningful work. — John Ruskin

A gentleman's first characteristic is that fineness of structure in the body which renders it capable of the most delicate sensation; and of structure in the mind which renders it capable of the most delicate sympathies; one may say simply fineness of nature. — John Ruskin

In mortals there is a care for trifles which proceeds from love and conscience, and is most holy; and a care for trifles which comes of idleness and frivolity, and is most base. And so, also, there is a gravity proceeding from thought, which is most noble; and a gravity proceeding from dulness and mere incapability of enjoyment, which is most base. — John Ruskin

Perhaps some of my hearers this evening may have occasionally heard it stated of me that I am rather apt to contradict myself. I hope I am exceedingly apt to do so. I never met wth a question yet, of any importance, which did not need, for the right solution of it, at least one positive and one negative answer, like an equation of the second degree. Mostly, matters of any consequence are three-sided, or four-sided, or polygonal; and the trotting round a polygon is severe work for people any way stiff in their opinions. For myself, I am never satisfied that I have handled a subject properly till I have contradicted myself at least three times: but once must do for this evening. — John Ruskin

Lately in a wreck of a Californian ship, one of the passengers fastened a belt about him with two hundred pounds of gold in it, with which he was found afterwards at the bottom. Now, as he was sinking- had he the gold? or the gold him? — John Ruskin

Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together. — John Ruskin

There is rough work to be done, and rough men must do it; there is gentle work to be done, and gentlemen must do it. — John Ruskin

There is no process of amalgamation by which opinions, wrong individually, can become right merely by their multitude. — John Ruskin

Modern traveling is not traveling at all; it is merely being sent to a place, and very little different from becoming a parcel. — John Ruskin

Greatness is the aggregation of minuteness; nor can its sublimity be felt truthfully by any mind unaccustomed to the affectionate watching of what is least. — John Ruskin

It is a matter of the simplest demonstration, that no man can be really appreciated but by his equal or superior. — John Ruskin

The art which we may call generally art of the wayside, as opposed to that which is the business of men's lives, is, in the best sense of the word, Grotesque. — John Ruskin

Obedience is, indeed, founded on a kind of freedom, else it would become mere subjugation, but that freedom is only granted that obedience may be more perfect; and thus while a measure of license is necessary to exhibit the individual energies of things, the fairness and pleasantness and perfection of them all consist in their restraint. — John Ruskin

If there be any one principle more widely than another confessed by every utterance, or more sternly than another imprinted on every atom of the visible creation, that principle is not liberty, but law. — John Ruskin

No small misery is caused by overworked and unhappy people, in the dark views which they necessarily take up themselves, and force upon others, of work itself. — John Ruskin

God never imposes a duty without giving time to do it. — John Ruskin

When I have been unhappy, I have heard an opera ... and it seemed the shrieking of winds; when I am happy, a sparrow's chirp is delicious to me. But it is not the chirp that makes me happy, but I that make it sweet. — John Ruskin

There are many religions, but there is only one morality. — John Ruskin

The object of true education is to make people not merely do the right things, but enjoy them — John Ruskin

I wish they would use English instead of Greek words. When I want to know why a leaf is green, they tell me it is coloured by "chlorophyll," which at first sounds very instructive; but if they would only say plainly that a leaf is coloured green by a thing which is called "green leaf," we should see more precisely how far we had got. — John Ruskin

No good is ever done to society by the pictorial representation of its diseases. — John Ruskin

God has lent us the earth for our life; it is a great entail. It belongs as much to those who are to come after us, and whose names are already written in the book of creation, as to us; and we have no right, by anything that we do or neglect, to involve them in unnecessary penalties, or deprive them of benefits which it was in our power to bequeath. — John Ruskin

How false is the conception, how frantic the pursuit, of that treacherous phantom which men call Liberty: most treacherous, indeed, of all phantoms; for the feeblest ray of reason might surely show us, that not only its attainment, but its being, was impossible ... There is no such thing in the universe. There can never be. The stars have it not; the earth has it not; the sea has it not; and we men have the mockery and semblance of it only for our heaviest punishment. — John Ruskin

There is no action so slight or so mean but it may be done to a great purpose, and ennobled thereby. — John Ruskin

The true grotesque being the expression of the repose or play of a serious mind, there is a false grotesque opposed to it, which is the result of the full exertion of a frivolous one. — John Ruskin

Labour without joy is base. Labour without sorrow is base. Sorrow without labour is base. Joy without labour is base. — John Ruskin

Never has interest in art been so high, and never has quality been so low. — John Ruskin

Our respect for the dead, when they are just dead, is something wonderful, and the way we show it more wonderful still. We show it with black feathers and black horses; we show it with black dresses and black heraldries; we show it with costly obelisks and sculptures of sorrow, which spoil half of our beautiful cathedrals. We show it with frightful gratings and vaults, and lids of dismal stone, in the midst of the quiet grass; and last, and not least, we show it by permitting ourselves to tell any number of falsehoods we think amiable or credible in the epitaph. — John Ruskin

The majesty of nature depends upon the force of the human spirit. — John Ruskin

If you can draw the stone rightly, everything within reach of art is also within yours. — John Ruskin

See! This our fathers did for us. — John Ruskin

All that we call ideal in Greek or any other art, because to us it is false and visionary, was, to the makers of it, true and existent. — John Ruskin

All great art is the expression of man's delight in God's work, not his own. — John Ruskin

PAINT the leaves as they grow! If you can paint one leaf, you can paint the world,' John Ruskin — John Ruskin

That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings. — John Ruskin

At least be sure you go to the author to find his meaning, not to find yours. — John Ruskin

Understand this clearly: you can teach a man to draw a straight line, and to carve it; and to copy and carve any number of given lines or forms, with admirable speed and perfect precision; and you find his work perfect of its kind: but if you ask him to think about any of those forms, to consider if he cannot find any better in his own head, he stops; his execution becomes hesitating; he thinks, and ten to one he thinks wrong; ten to one he makes a mistake in the first touch he gives to his work as a thinking being. But you have made a man of him for all that. He was only a machine before, an animated tool. — John Ruskin

The very cheapness of literature is making even wise people forget that if a book is worth reading, it is worth buying. No book is worth anything which is not worth much; nor is it serviceable, until it has been read, and re-read, and loved, and loved again; and marked, so that you can refer to the passages you want in it. — John Ruskin

I believe the first test of a truly great man is in his humility. — John Ruskin

In order that a man may be happy, it is necessary that he should not only be capable of his work, but a good judge of his work. — John Ruskin

If we pretend to have reached either perfection or satisfaction, we have degraded ourselves and our work. God's work only may express that, but ours may never have that sentence written upon it, Behold it was very good. — John Ruskin

Come, ye cold winds, at January's call, On whistling wings, and with white flakes bestrew The earth. — John Ruskin

The greatest reward is not what we receive for our labor, but what we become by it. — John Ruskin

Wherever men are noble, they love bright colour; and wherever they can live healthily, bright colour is given them - in sky, sea, flowers, and living creatures. — John Ruskin

In every person who comes near you look for what is good and strong. — John Ruskin