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 23

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

It is only by labour that thought can be made healthy, and only by thought that labour can be made happy, and the two cannot be separated with impunity.

It is only by labour that thought can be made healthy, and only by thought that labour can be made happy, and the two cannot be separated with impunity.

Work, Two, Healthy

John Ruskin (2013). “The Stones of Venice -: The Sea Stories”, p.169, Cosimo, Inc.

Another of the strange and evil tendencies of the present day is the decoration of the railroad station... There was never more flagrant nor impertinent folly than the smallest portion of ornament in anything connected with the railroads... Railroad architecture has or would have a dignity of its own if it were only left to its work.

Evil, Ornaments, Railroads

If men lived like men indeed, their houses would be temples -- temples which we should hardly dare to injure, and in which it would make us holy to be permitted to live; and there must be a strange dissolution of natural affection, a strange unthankfulness for all that homes have given and parents taught, a strange consciousness that we have been unfaithful to our fathers honor, or that our own lives are not such as would make our dwellings sacred to our children, when each man would fain build to himself, and build for the little revolution of his own life only.

Children, Father, Home

John Ruskin, John D. Rosenberg (1964). “The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from His Writings”, p.132, University of Virginia Press

To give alms is nothing unless you give thought also.

Giving, Literature, Alms

John Ruskin (2015). “Lectures on Architecture and Painting”, p.66, John Ruskin

The relative majesty of buildings depends more on the weight and vigour of their masses than any other tribute of their design.

Design, Weight, Majesty

Cookery means…English thoroughness, French art, and Arabian hospitality; it means the knowledge of all fruits and herbs and balms and spices; it means carefulness, inventiveness, and watchfulness.

Art, Food, Mean

Work first and then rest. Work first, and then gaze, but do not use golden ploughshares, nor bind ledgers in enamel.

Use, Golden, Firsts

John Ruskin (1849). “The Seven Lamps of Architecture”, p.109

Drawing is a means of obtaining and communicating knowledge

Mean, Drawing, Communicate

John Ruskin (2015). “A Joy Forever”, p.126, John Ruskin

No divine terror will ever be found in the work of the man who wastes a colossal strength in elaborating toys; for the first lesson that terror is sent to teach us is, the value of the human soul, and the shortness of mortal time.

Men, Soul, Lessons

John Ruskin (1853). “The Stones of Venice: The fall”, p.144

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.

Reading, Feet, Hands

John Ruskin (1849). “Of ideas of beauty”, p.25

Perfect taste is the faculty of receiving the greatest possible pleasure from those material sources which are attractive to oar moral nature in its purity and perfection.

Perfect, Taste, Receiving

The common practice of keeping up appearances with society is a mere selfish struggle of the vain with the vain.

Selfish, Struggle, Vanity

God shows us in Himself, strange as it may seem, not only authoritative perfection, but even the perfection of obedience--an obedience to His own laws; and in the cumbrous movement of those unwieldiest of his creatures we are reminded, even in His divine essence, of that attribute of uprightness in the human creature "that sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not.

God, Hurt, Law

John Ruskin (1849). “The Seven Lamps of Architecture”, p.37

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?

Dirty, Land, Bye

John Ruskin (1865). “Sesame and Lilies, etc”, p.69

Every duty we omit obscures some truth we should have known.

Should Have, Duty, Known

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.

Children, Mountain, Obstacles

John Ruskin (1903). “The Works of 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.

Stars, Men, Sea

John Ruskin “The stones of Venice (cont'd) Seven lamps of architecture. Lectures on architecture and painting, delivered at Edinburgh in Nov. 1853. An inquiry into some of the conditions at present affecting the study of architecture in our schools”

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.

Sweet, Morning, Light

1886-8 Praeterita, vol.3, pt.4,'Joanna's Cave', note. Ruskin 704

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.

Knowledge, Science, Law

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.

Men, Errors, Ideas

John Ruskin (1873). “The Ethics of the Dust: Ten Lectures to Little Housewives on the Elements of Crystallisation”, p.231

No picture can be good which deceives by its imitation, for the very reason that nothing can be beautiful which is not true.

Beautiful, Deceiving, Reason

John Ruskin (1834). “Modern Painters”, p.25

So long as we see the stones and joints, and are not deceived as to the points of support in any piece of architecture, we may rather praise than regret the dexterous artifices which compel us to feel as if there were fibre in its shafts and life in its branches.

Regret, Long, Support

John Ruskin (1849). “The Seven Lamps of Architecture”, p.34

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.

Care, Noble, Holy

John Ruskin (1867). “Precious Thoughts: Moral and Religious. Gathered from the Works of John Ruskin, A. M.”, p.302

Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become.

Positive, Dream, Inspiration

Vice-Chancellor, Professor Paul Curran's speech at The Chancellor's Dinner, Mansion House, www.city.ac.uk. April 23, 2014.

As long as there are cold and nakedness in the land around you, so long can there be no question at all but that splendor of dress is a crime.

Land, Long, Dresses

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.422

You May Also Like: