Authors:

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z

John Ruskin Quotes - Page 19

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

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.

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.

Dark, Views, People

John Ruskin (1907). “The Religion of Ruskin: The Life and Works of John Ruskin; a Biographical and Anthological Study”

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.

Character, Men, Differences

John Ruskin, Louisa Caroline Tuthill (1860). “The True and the Beautiful in Nature, Art, Morals and Religion: Selected from the Works of John Ruskin...”, p.142

Ornamentation is the principal part of architecture, considered as a subject of fine art.

Art, Architecture, Fine

John Ruskin (2015). “Lectures on Architecture and Painting”, p.82, John Ruskin

Education is the leading of human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them.

Education, School, Soul

John Ruskin (1853). “The Stones of Venice: The fall”, p.216

Drunkenness is not only the cause of crime, but it is crime; and if any encourage drunkenness for the sake of the profit derived from the sale of drink, they are guilty of a form of moral assassination as criminal as any that has ever been practiced by the braves of any country or of any age.

Country, Brave, Age

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.

Light, Darkness, Shadow

John Ruskin (1866). “The seven lamps of architecture”, p.142

There is but one question ultimately to be asked respecting every line you draw, Is it right or wrong? If right, it most assuredly is not a "free" line, but an intensely continent, restrained and considered line; and the action of the hand in laying it is just as decisive, and just as "free" as the hand of a first-rate surgeon in a critical incision.

Hands, Lines, Firsts

John Ruskin (1869). “The Queen of the Air: Being a Study of the Greek Myths of Cloud and Storm”, p.169

Along the iron veins that traverse the frame of our country, beat and flow the fiery pulses of its exertion, hotter and faster every hour. All vitality is concentrated through those throbbing arteries into the central cities; the country is passed over like a green sea by narrow bridges, and we are thrown back in continually closer crowds on the city gates.

Country, Sea, Bridges

John Ruskin, John D. Rosenberg (1964). “The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from His Writings”, p.138, University of Virginia Press

Modern science gives lectures on botany, to show there is no such thing as a flower; on humanity, to show there is no such thing as a man; and on theology, to show there is no such thing as a God. No such thing as a man, but only a mechanism, No such thing as a God, but only a series of forces.

Flower, Men, Giving

John Ruskin (1918). “Selections and Essays”, Scholarly Press

Architecture is the art which so disposes and adorns the edifices raised by man, that the sight of them may contribute to his mental health, power, and pleasure.

Art, Men, Sight

John Ruskin (1849). “The Seven Lamps of Architecture”, p.7

The sculptor does not work for the anatomist, but for the common observer of life and nature.

Doe, Sculpture, Common

John Ruskin (1848). “Modern Painters”, p.26

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.

Mean, Acting, Energy

John Ruskin (1860). “The Stones of Venice...”, p.5

Whether we force the man's property from him by pinching his stomach, or pinching his fingers, makes some difference anatomically; morally, none whatsoever.

Men, Differences, Pinching

John Ruskin (1872). “The Two Paths: Being Lectures on Art, and Its Application to Decoration and Manufacture, Delivered in 1858-9”, p.186

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.

Science, Greek, Wish

John Ruskin (1800). “The Seven Lamps of Architecture: Also, Lectures on Architecture and Painting; The Study of Architecture; Sesame and Lilies; Unto this Last; The Queen of the Air; The Storm-cloud of the Nineteenth Century”

It is impossible to tell you the perfect sweetness of the lips and closed eyes, nor the solemnity of the seal of death which is set upon the whole figure. It is, in every way, perfect--truth itself, but truth selected with inconceivable refinement of feeling.

Eye, Perfect, Feelings

John Ruskin (1903). “The Works of John Ruskin”

Science has to do with facts, art with phenomena. To science, phenomena are of use only as they lead to facts; and to art, facts are of use only as they lead to phenomena.

Art, Science, Use

John Ruskin (1897*). “Stones of Venice”

There is a satisfactory and available power in every one to learn drawing if he wishes, just as nearly all persons have the power of learning French, Latin or arithmetic, in a decent and useful degree.

Latin, Power, Drawing

John Ruskin (1859). “The Elements of Drawing: In Three Letters to Beginners”, p.4

Wise laws and just restraints are to a noble nation not chains, but chains of mail, -- strength and defense, though something of an incumbrance.

Wise, Law, Liberty

John Ruskin (1900). “Complete Works”

The word "Blue" does not mean the sensation caused by a gentian on the human eye; but it means the power of producing that sensation: and this power is always there, in the thing, whether we are there to experience it or not, and would remain there though there were not a man left on the face of the earth.

Mean, Eye, Men

John Ruskin, Frederick William Roe (2013). “Selections and Essays”, p.115, Courier Corporation

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.

Holiday, Mean, Men

John Ruskin (1873). “Pt. 6-9 of leaf beauty. of cloud beauty. of ideas of relation”, p.233

We shall be remembered in history as the most cruel, and therefore the most unwise, generation of men that ever yet troubled the earth: the most cruel in proportion to their sensibility, the most unwise in proportion to their science. No people, understanding pain, ever inflicted so much: no people, understanding facts, ever acted on them so little.

Pain, Men, People

John Ruskin (1873). “The Eagle's Nest: Ten Lectures on the Relation of Natural Science to Art, Given Before the University of Oxford in Lent Term, 1872”, p.34

What do you suppose makes all men look back to the time of childhood with so much regret (if their childhood has been, in any moderate degree, healthy or peaceful)? That rich charm, which the least possession had for us, was in consequence of the poorness of our treasures.

Regret, Men, Childhood

John Ruskin “Two paths. Lectures on art, delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary Term, 1870. Aratra Pentelici. Time and tide. Pre-Raphaelitism. The eagle's nest. King of the Golden River. The relation between Michael Angelo and Tintoret”

But whether thus submissively or not, at least be sure that you go to the author to get at his meaning, not to find yours.

Sesame and Lilies "Of Kings' Treasuries" (1865)

When men are rightly occupied, their amusement grows out of their work, as the colour-petals out of a fruitful flower; when they are faithfully helpful and compassionate, all their emotions become steady, deep, perpetual, and vivifying to the soul as the natural pulse to the body. But now, having no true business, we pour our whole masculine energy into the false business of money-making; and having no true emotion, we must have false emotions dressed up for us to play with, not innocently, as children with dolls, but guiltily and darkly.

Children, Flower, Men

John Ruskin, John D. Rosenberg (1964). “The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from His Writings”, p.312, University of Virginia Press

... 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.

Race, Forever, Peculiar

John Ruskin (1848). “Modern Painters”, p.79

You May Also Like: