Ruskin John Quotes & Sayings

Childhood often holds a truth with its feeble finger, which the grasp of manhood cannot retain,
which it is the pride of utmost age to recover. — John Ruskin

Our large trading cities bear to me very nearly the aspect of monastic establishments in which the roar of the mill-wheel and the crane takes the place of other devotional music, and in which the worship of Mammon and Moloch is conducted with a tender reverence and an exact propriety; the merchant rising to his Mammon matins, with the self-denial of an anchorite, and expiating the frivolities into which he maybe beguiled in the course of the day by late attendance at Mammon vespers. — John Ruskin

Let every dawn of the morning be to you as the beginning of life. And let every setting of the sun be to you as its close. Then let everyone of these short lives leave its sure record of some kindly thing done for others; some good strength of knowledge gained for yourself. — John Ruskin

You must get into the habit of looking intensely at words, and assuring yourself of their meaning, syllable by syllable-nay, letter by letter ... you might read all the books in the British Museum (if you could live long enough) and remain an utterly "illiterate," undeducated person; but if you read ten pages of a good book, letter by letter, - that is to say, with real accuracy- you are for evermore in some measure an educated person. — John Ruskin

As in the instances of alchemy, astrology, witchcraft, and other such popular creeds, political economy, has a plausible idea at the root of it. — John Ruskin

Living without an aim, is like sailing without a compass. — John Ruskin

Conceit may puff a man up, but never prop him up. — John Ruskin

We are always in these days endeavoring to separate intellect and manual labor; we want one man to be always thinking, and another to be always working, and we call one a gentleman, and the other an operative; whereas the workman ought often to be thinking, and the thinker often to be working, and both should be gentlemen in the best sense. — John Ruskin

To invent a story, or admirably and thoroughly tell any part of a story, it is necessary to grasp the entire mind of every personage concerned in it, and know precisely how they would be affected by what happens; which to do requires a colossal intellect: but to describe a separate emotion delicately, it is only needed that one should feel it oneself; and thousands of people are capable of feeling this or that noble emotion, for one who is able to enter into all the feelings of someone sitting on the other side of the table. — John Ruskin

I had no companions to quarrel with, nobody to assist, and nobody to thank ... the evil consequence of all this was not, however, what might perhaps have been expected, that I grew up selfish or non affectionate; but that, when affection did come, it came with a violence utterly rampant and unmanageable. — John Ruskin

Candlesticks and incense not being portable into the maintop, the sailor perceives these decorations to be, on the whole, inessential to a maintop mass. Sails must be set and cables bent, be it never so strict a saint's day; and it is found that no harm comes of it. Absolution on a lee-shore must be had of the breakers, it appears, if at all; and they give plenary and brief without listening to confession. — John Ruskin

Many thoughts are so dependent upon the language in which they are clothed that they would lose half their beauty if otherwise expressed. — John Ruskin

He who can take no interest in what is small will take false interest in what is great. — John Ruskin

The enormous influence of novelty
the way in which it quickens observations, sharpens sensations, and exalts sentiment
is not half enough taken note of by us, and is to me a very sorrowful matter. And yet, if we try to obtain perpetual change, change itself will become monotonous. — John Ruskin

Large fortunes are all founded either on the occupation of land, or lending or the taxation of labor. — John Ruskin

To banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality. — John Ruskin

The scholar is early acquainted with every department of the impossible. — John Ruskin

He that would be angry and sin not, must not be angry with anything but sin. — John Ruskin

Architecture is the work of nations — 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

All traveling becomes dull in exact proportion to its rapidity. — John Ruskin

I know few Christians so convinced of the splendor of the rooms in their Father's house, as to be happier when their friends are called to those mansions ... Nor has the Church's ardent "desire to depart, and be with Christ," ever cured it of the singular habit of putting on mourning for every person summoned to such departure. — John Ruskin

You do not see with the lens of the eye. You seen through that, and by means of that, but you see with the soul of the eye. — John Ruskin

The history of humanity is not the history of its wars, but the history of its households. — John Ruskin

The truth of Nature is a part of the truth of God; to him who does not search it out, darkness; to him who does, infinity. — John Ruskin

The man who accepts the laissez-faire doctrine would allow his garden to grow wild so that roses might fight it out with the weeds and the fittest might survive. — John Ruskin

True taste is forever growing, learning, reading, worshipping, laying its hand upon its mouth because it is astonished, casting its shoes from off its feet because it finds all ground holy. — John Ruskin

You talk of the scythe of Time, and the tooth of Time: I tell you, Time is scytheless and toothless; it is we who gnaw like the worm - we who smite like the scythe. It is ourselves who abolish - ourselves who consume: we are the mildew, and the flame. — John Ruskin

Children see in their parents the past, their parents see in them the future; and if we find more love in the parents for their children than in children for their parents, this is sad but natural. Who does not entertain his hopes more than his recollections. — 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

Cursing is invoking the assistance of a spirit to help you inflict suffering. Swearing on the other hand, is invoking, only the witness of a spirit to an statement you wish to make. — John Ruskin

Imaginary evils soon become real one by indulging our reflections on them. — John Ruskin

All great and beautiful work has come of first gazing without shrinking into the darkness. — John Ruskin

Other men used their effete faiths and mean faculties with a high moral purpose. The Venetian gave the most earnest faith, and the lordliest faculty, to gild the shadows of an antechamber, or heighten the splendours of a holiday. — John Ruskin

The best work never was and never will be done for money. — John Ruskin

A nation which lives a pastoral and innocent life never decorates the shepherd's staff or the plough-handle; but races who live by depredation and slaughter nearly always bestow exquisite ornaments on the quiver, the helmet, and the spear. — John Ruskin

Cookery means the knowledge of Medea and of Circe and of Helen and of the Queen of Sheba. It means the knowledge of all herbs and fruits and balms and spices, and all that is healing and sweet in the fields and groves and savory in meats. It means carefulness and inventiveness and willingness and readiness of appliances. It means the economy of your grandmothers and the science of the modern chemist; it means much testing and no wasting; it means English thoroughness and French art and Arabian hospitality; and, in fine, it means that you are to be perfectly and always ladies - loaf givers. — John Ruskin

I've seen the Rhine with younger wave, O'er every obstacle to rave. I see the Rhine in his native wild Is still a mighty mountain child. — 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

A power of obtaining veracity in the representation of material and tangible things, which, within certain limits and conditions, is unimpeachable, has now been placed in the hands of all men, almost without labour. (1853) — John Ruskin

When a man is wrapped up in himself, he makes a pretty small package. — 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

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

Imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know in life. — John Ruskin

It is strange that of all the pieces of the Bible which my mother taught me, that which cost me the most to learn, and which was to my childish mind the most repulsive - Psalm 119 - has now become of all the most precious to me in its overflowing and glorious passion of love for the Law of God. — John Ruskin

The essence of lying is in deception, not in words. — John Ruskin

I believe that the first test of a great man is his humility. I don't mean by humility, doubt of his power. But really great men have a curious feeling that the greatness is not of them, but through them. And they see something divine in every other man and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful. — John Ruskin

I do not believe that ever any building was truly great, unless it had mighty masses, vigorous and deep, of shadow mingled with its surface. — John Ruskin

It takes a great deal of living to get a little deal of learning. — John Ruskin

The eye is continually influenced by what it cannot detect; nay, it is not going too far, to say that it is most influenced by what it detects least. Let the painter define, if he can, the variations of lines on which depend the change of expression in the human countenance. — 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

Modern education has devoted itself to the teaching of impudence, and then we complain that we can no longer control our mobs. — John Ruskin

Natural abilities can almost compensate for the want of every kind of cultivation, but no cultivation of the mind can make up for the want of natural abilities. — John Ruskin

God alone can finish. — John Ruskin

I believe that the sight is a more important thing than the drawing ... — John Ruskin

But I beg you to observe that there is a wide difference between being captains or governors of work, and taking the profits of it. It does not follow, because you are general of an army, that you are to take all the treasure, or land, it wins; (if it fight for treasure or land); neither, because you are king of a nation, that you are to consume all the profits of the nation's work. — John Ruskin

If a book is worth reading, it is worth buying. — John Ruskin

There are no laws by which we can write Iliads. — John Ruskin

The great cry that rises from our manufacturing cities, louder than their furnace blast, is all in very deed for this, that we manufacture everything there except men; we blanch cotton, and strengthen steel, and refine sugar, and shape pottery; but to brighten, to strengthen, to refine, or to form a single living spirit, never enters into our estimate of advantages. — John Ruskin

Success by the laws of competition signifies a victory over others by obtaining the direction and profits of their work. This is the real source of all great riches. — John Ruskin

Government and cooperation are in all things the laws of life. Anarchy and competition, the laws of death. — John Ruskin

You shall have thousands of gold pieces; - thousands of thousands - millions - mountains of gold: where will you keep them? — John Ruskin

We are, after all, only trustees of the wealth we possess. Without the community and its resources ... there would be little wealth for anyone. — John Ruskin

No one can ask honestly or hopefully to be delivered from temptation unless he has himself honestly and firmly determined to do the best he can to keep out of it. — John Ruskin

Nothing can be true which is either complete or vacant; every touch is false which does not suggest more than it represents, and every space is false which represents nothing. — John Ruskin

You will find that the mere resolve not to be useless, and the honest desire to help other people, will, in the quickest and delicatest ways, improve yourself. — John Ruskin

Variety is a positive requisite even in the character of our food. — John Ruskin

People are always expecting to get peace in heaven: but you know whatever peace they get there will be ready-made. Whatever making of peace they can be blest for, must be on the earth here. — John Ruskin

Surely our clergy need not be surprised at the daily increasing distrust in the public mind of the efficacy of prayer. — 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

God gives us always strength enough, and sense enough, for everything He wants us to do. — John Ruskin

Men don't and can't live by exchanging articles, but by producing them. They don't live by trade, but by work. Give up that foolish and vain title of Trades Unions; and take that of laborers Unions. — John Ruskin

Fit yourself for the best society, and then, never enter it. — John Ruskin

There is no music in a "rest" that I know of, but there's the making of music in it. And people are always missing that part of the life melody. — 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

Depend upon it, the first universal characteristic of all great art is Tenderness, as the second is Truth. — John Ruskin

Kind hearts are the garden, kind thoughts are the roots, kind words are the blossoms, kind deeds are the fruit. — John Ruskin

The more readily we admit the possibility of our own cherished convictions being mixed with error, the more vital and helpful whatever is right in them will become; and no error is so conclusively fatal as the idea that God will not allow us to err, though He has allowed all other men to do so. — John Ruskin

Man's only true happiness is to live in hope of something to be won by him. Reverence something to be worshipped by him, and love something to be cherished by him, forever. — 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

It is a shallow criticism that would define poetry as confined to literary productions in rhyme and meter rhythm. The written poem is only poetry talking, and the statue, the picture, and the musical composition are poetry acting. Milton and Goethe, at their desks, were not more truly poets than Phidias with his chisel, Raphael at his easel, or deaf Beethoven bending over his piano, inventing and producing strains, which he himself could never hope to hear. — 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

Every increased possession loads us with new weariness. — John Ruskin

Life without industry is guilt. Industry without Art is Brutality. — John Ruskin

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

The only way to understand the difficult parts of the Bible is first to read and obey the easy ones. — John Ruskin

Men cannot not live by exchanging articles, but producing them. They live by work not trade. — 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 one can do me any good by loving me; I have more love than I need or could do any good with; but people do me good by making me love them - which isn't easy. — John Ruskin

Death is not a journey into an unknown land; it is a voyage home. We are going, not to a strange country, but to our fathers house. — John Ruskin

All the best things and treasures of this world are not to be produced by each generation for itself; but we are all intended, not to carve our work in snow that will melt, but each and all of us to be continually rolling a great white gathering snow-ball, higher and higher, larger and larger, along the Alps of human power. — John Ruskin

Bread of flour is good; but there is bread, sweet as honey, if we would eat it, in a good book. — John Ruskin

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. — John Ruskin

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

Beautiful art can only be produced by people who have beautiful things about them. — John Ruskin

It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When
you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you pay
too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you
bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The
common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a
lot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well
to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will
have enough to pay for something better. — John Ruskin

What right have you to take the word wealth, which originally meant 'well-being,' and degrade and narrow it by confining it to certain sorts of material objects measured by money. — 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