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John Ruskin Quotes - Page 6

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

Shadows are in reality, when the sun is shining, the most conspicuous thing in a landscape, next to the highest lights.

Shadows are in reality, when the sun is shining, the most conspicuous thing in a landscape, next to the highest lights.

Reality, Light, Shining

John Ruskin (1873). “Pt. 1-2. of general principles and of truth”, p.172

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.

Art, Architecture, Painter

'Lectures on Architecture and Painting' (1853) 61, addenda

Milton saw not, and Beethoven heard not, but the sense of beauty was upon them, and they fain must speak.

Poetry, Saws, Speak

Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts the book of their deeds, the book of their words, and the book of their art. Not one of these books can be understood unless we read the two others; but of the three, the only quite trustworthy one is the last. The acts of a nation may be triumphant by its good fortune; and its words mighty by the genius of a few of its children: but its art, only by the general gifts and common sympathies of the race.

Art, Children, Book

St. Mark's Rest preface (1877)

Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them.

Writing, Reader, Skip

"A Joy for Ever". Book by John Ruskin, note 6, 1857.

One of the worst diseases to which the human creature is liable is its disease of thinking.

Thinking, Disease, Liable

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.114

To use books rightly, is to go to them for help; to appeal to them when our own knowledge and power fail; to be led by them into wider sight and purer conception than our own, and to receive from them the united sentence of the judges and councils of all time, against our solitary and unstable opinions.

Book, Knowledge And Power, Sight

William Makepeace Thackeray, John Henry Newman, Matthew Arnold, John Ruskin, Walter Bagehot (1910). “Essays, English and American: With Introductions and Notes”

I cannot but think it an evil sign of a people when their houses are built to last for one generation only.

Thinking, Evil, People

John Ruskin, Louisa Caroline Tuthill (1859). “The True and the Beautiful: In Nature, Art, Morals, and Religion”, p.141

Whenever I did anything wrong, stupid or hard-hearted, and I have done many things that were all three, my mother always said "it is because you were too much indulged."

Mother, Stupid, Three

John Ruskin, David Carrier, Walter Pater, Adrian Stokes (1997). “England and Its Aesthetes: Biography and Taste”, p.31, Psychology Press

Humanity and Immortality consist neither in reason, nor in love; not in the body, nor in the animation of the heart of it, nor in the thoughts and stirrings of the brain of it;--but in the dedication of them all to Him who will raise them up at the last day.

Heart, Dedication, Humanity

John Ruskin (1858). “The Stones of Venice”, p.41

To be taught to read—what is the use of that, if you know not whether what you read is false or true? To be taught to write or to speak—but what is the use of speaking, if you have nothing to say? To be taught to think—nay, what is the use of being able to think, if you have nothing to think of? But to be taught to see is to gain word and thought at once, and both true.

Writing, Thinking, Use

John Ruskin (19??). “Works: The laws of Fésole. A joy forever. Our fathers have told us. Inaugural address. Modern painters,v.1”

Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery.

Climbing, Hiking, Mountain

Modern Painters vol. 4, pt. 5, ch. 20 (1856)

Order and system are nobler things than power.

Order

John Ruskin (1849). “The Seven Lamps of Architecture”, p.40

God is a kind Father. He sets us all in the places where he wishes us to be employed. He chooses work for every creature which will be delightful to them if they do it simply and humbly. He gives us always strength enough and sense enough for what he wants us to do.

Father, Giving, Wish

John Ruskin (1873). “The Ethics of the Dust: Ten Lectures to Little Housewives on the Elements of Crystallisation”, p.132

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

Art, Truth, Firsts

John Ruskin (1872). “The Two Paths: Being Lectures on Art, and Its Application to Decoration and Manufacture, Delivered in 1858-9”, p.38

Being thus prepared for us in all ways, and made beautiful, and good for food, and for building, and for instruments of our hands, this race of plants, deserving boundless affection and admiration from us, becomes, in proportion to their obtaining it, a nearly perfect test of our being in right temper of mind and way of life; so that no one can be far wrong in either who loves trees enough, and everyone is assuredly wrong in both who does not love them, if his life has brought them in his way.

Life, Beautiful, Race

John Ruskin (1873). “Pt. 6-9 of leaf beauty. of cloud beauty. of ideas of relation”, p.4

You can only possess beauty through understanding it.

Understanding

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.

Fall, Eye, Men

The higher a man stands, the more the word vulgar becomes unintelligible to him.

Men, Literature, Vulgar

John Ruskin (1888). “Modern Painters (Complete)”, p.798, Library of Alexandria

No girl who is well bred, 'kind, and modest, is ever offensively plain; all real deformity means want of manners, or of heart.

Real, Heart, Mean

"Fors Clavigera: Letters to the Workmen and Labourers of Great Britain".

The noble grotesque involves the true appreciation of beauty.

Beauty, Appreciation, Noble

John Ruskin (1853). “The Stones of Venice: The fall”, p.160

Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you.

Journey, Light, Hiking

The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world... to see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion all in one.

Women, Soul, Doe

John Ruskin, John D. Rosenberg (1964). “The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from His Writings”, p.91, University of Virginia Press

Better the rudest work that tells a story or records a fact, than the richest without meaning.

Rude, Stories, Records

'The Seven Lamps of Architecture' (1849) ch. 6 'The Lamp of Memory' 7

Don't just look at buildings ... watch them.

Watches, Looks, Architecture

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