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John Ruskin Quotes - Page 18

All Quotes Age Ambition Anger Appearance Appreciation Architecture Art Atheism Beauty Business Change Character Charity Children Choices Christ Country Creation Darkness Death Design Desire Dignity Discipline Doubt Duty Education Effort Energy Evil Feelings Generosity Genius Giving God Greatness Happiness Hate Heart Heaven History Home Honesty Honor House Humanity Humility Hurt Idolatry Ignorance Imagination Imperfection Inspirational Intelligence Journey Judging Judgment Justice Kindness Knowledge Labor Labour Language Liberty Life Literature Love Lying Money Morality Morning Motivational Mountain Music Nature Obedience Pain Painting Passion Past Patience Peace Perfection Pleasure Politics Positive Power Praise Pride Progress Purity Purpose Quality Rain Reading Reality Religion Running Sacrifice School Science Simplicity Sin Slavery Sorrow Soul Success Teaching Time Truth Understanding Values Virtue Wall War Wealth Winning Wisdom Work Writing

The step between practical and theoretic science, is the step between the miner and the geologist, the apocathecary and the chemist.

The step between practical and theoretic science, is the step between the miner and the geologist, the apocathecary and the chemist.

Steps, Chemist, Practicals

John Ruskin (1873). “Pt. 3, sections 1-2 of the imaginative and theoretic faculties”, p.8

Unless we perform divine service with every willing act of our life, we never perform it at all.

Action, Divine, Willing

John Ruskin (1866). “The crown of wild olive”, p.28

Absolute and entire ugliness is rare.

Absolutes, Ugliness

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

Appreciation, Men, Matter

John Ruskin (1873). “Pt. 1-2. of general principles and of truth”, p.2

Men are more evanescent than pictures, yet one sorrows for lost friends, and pictures are my friends. I have none others. I am never long enough with men to attach myself to them; and whatever feelings of attachment I have are to material things.

Friendship, Men, Long

John Ruskin (1904). “The works of John Ruskin”

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

Education, Meaningful, Able

It was stated, . . . that the value of architecture depended on two distinct characters:--the one, the impression it receives from human power; the other, the image it bears of the natural creation.

Character, Two, Bears

John Ruskin (1849). “The Seven Lamps of Architecture”, p.94

One who does not know when to die, does not know how to live.

Death, Dying, Doe

John Ruskin (2015). “Unto This Last”, p.232, John Ruskin

Of all the things that oppress me, this sense of the evil working of nature herself -my disgust at her barbarity -clumsiness -darkness -bitter mockery of herself -is the most desolating.

Evil, Darkness, Clumsiness

We have seen when the earth had to be prepared for the habitation of man, a veil, as it were, of intermediate being was spread between him and its darkness, in which were joined in a subdued measure, the stability and insensibility of the earth, and the passion and perishing of mankind.

Passion, Men, Creation Of Man

John Ruskin (1860). “Modern Painters: pt. 6. Of leaf beauty. pt. 7. Of Cloud beauty. pt. 8-9. Of ideas of relation”, p.109

Men are merely on a lower or higher stage of an eminence, whose summit is God's throne infinitely above all; and there is just as much reason for the wisest as for the simplest man being discontent with his position, as respects the real quantity of knowledge he possesses.

Real, Men, Thrones

John Ruskin (1912). “The fall”

One evening, when I was yet in my nurse's arms, I wanted to touch the tea urn, which was boiling merrily ... My nurse would have taken me away from the urn, but my mother said "Let him touch it." So I touched it - and that was my first lesson in the meaning of liberty.

Mother, Taken, Nurse

John Ruskin (1905). “The Works of John Ruskin”

Men say their pinnacles point to heaven. Why, so does every tree that buds, and every bird that rises as it sings. Men say their aisles are good for worship. Why, so is every mountain glen and rough sea-shore. But this they have of distinct and indisputable glory,--that their mighty walls were never raised, and never shall be, but by men who love and aid each other in their weakness.

Wall, Men, Sea

John Ruskin (1872). “The Two Paths: Being Lectures on Art, and Its Application to Decoration and Manufacture, Delivered in 1858-9”, p.150

Your art is to be the praise of something that you love. It may only be the praise of a shell or a stone.

Art, Shells, May

John Ruskin (188?). “Works: "A joy forever." The art of England. "Our fathers have told us." The laws of Fesole. The pleasures of England. Fiction fair and foul. Notes on the construction of sheepfolds. Inaugural address ... Cambridge School of Art, October 29th, 1858. The storm cloud of the nineteenth century. The opening of the Crystal Palace”

It is not so much in buying pictures as in being pictures, that you can encourage a noble school. The best patronage of art is not that which seeks for the pleasures of sentiment in a vague ideality, nor for beauty of form in a marble image, but that which educates your children into living heroes, and binds down the flights and the fondnesses of the heart into practical duty and faithful devotion.

Art, Children, Hero

John Ruskin, Louisa Caroline Tuthill (1867). “Precious Thoughts: Moral and Religious. Gathered from the Works of John Ruskin, A. M.”, p.77

Remember always, in painting as in eloquence, the greater your strength, the quieter will be your manner, and the fewer your words; and in painting, as in all the arts and acts of life the secret of high success will be found, not in a fretful and various excellence, but in a quiet singleness of justly chosen aim.

Art, Secret, Excellence

John Ruskin (1868). “Precious Thoughts, Moral and Religious”, p.155

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.

Self, Cities, Rising

John Ruskin (1872). “The Political Economy of Art: Being the Substance (with Additions) of Two Lectures Delivered at Manchester, July 10th and 13th, 1857”, p.124

All that is good in art is the expression of one soul talking to another, and is precious according to the greatness of the soul that utters it.

Art, Greatness, Expression

John Ruskin (1853). “The Stones of Venice: The fall”, p.188

English artists are usually entirely ruined by residence in Italy.

Artist, Ruined, Residence

1873 Modern Painters, vol.1, pt.1,'Of General Principles'.

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

Religion, Morality

John Ruskin (1888). “Sesame and Lilies. Three Lectures”

Labour without joy is base. Labour without sorrow is base. Sorrow without labour is base. Joy without labour is base.

Joy, Sorrow, Labour

'Time and Tide' (1867) letter 5

The work of science is to substitute facts for appearances, and demonstrations for impressions.

Science, Facts, Appearance

Stones of Venice Vol. III, Ch. II

There's no music in rest, but there's the making of music in it. And people are always missing that part of the life melody, always talking of perseverance and courage and fortitude; but patience is the finest and worthiest part of fortitude, and the rarest, too.

Patience, Perseverance, Talking

John Ruskin (1905). “Sesame and Lilies; The Ethics of the Dust; The Crown of Wild Olive: With Letters on Public Affairs, 1859-1866”

Nobody cares much at heart about Titian, only there is a strange undercurrent of everlasting murmur about his name, which means the deep consent of all great men that he is greater than they.

Heart, Mean, Greatness

'The Two Paths' (1859) lecture 2

What is in reality cowardice and faithlessness, we call charity, and consider it the part of benevolence sometimes to forgive men's evil practice for the sake of their accurate faith, and sometimes to forgive their confessed heresy for the sake of their admirable practice.

Reality, Men, Practice

John Ruskin (1853). “The Stones of Venice”, p.109

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