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John Ruskin Quotes - Page 9

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

There are no laws by which we can write Iliads.

There are no laws by which we can write Iliads.

Writing, Law, Genius

John Ruskin (1873). “The fall”, p.97

What is poetry? The suggestion, by the imagination, of noble grounds for the noble emotions.

Imagination, Poetry, Suggestions

'Modern Painters' (1888) vol. 3

It is excellent discipline for an author to feel that he must say all he has to say in the fewest possible words, or his reader is sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words, or his reader will certainly misunderstand them. Generally, also, a downright fact may be told in a plain way; and we want downright facts at present more than anything else.

Discipline, May, Want

John Ruskin (2015). “A Joy Forever”, p.113, John Ruskin

When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought is incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do.

Littles, Pay, Too Much

"The Yale Book of Quotations". Book by Fred R. Shapiro, p. 657, 2006.

Mountains are to the rest of the body of the earth, what violent muscular action is to the body of man. The muscles and tendons of its anatomy are, in the mountain, brought out with force and convulsive energy, full of expression, passion, and strength.

Passion, Men, Expression

John Ruskin (1905). “The Complete Works of John Ruskin: Miscellanies”

No good work whatever can be perfect, and the demand for perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art.

Art, Work, Perfect

John Ruskin, John D. Rosenberg (1964). “The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from His Writings”, p.183, University of Virginia Press

I would rather teach drawing that my pupils may learn to love nature, than teach the looking at nature that they may learn to draw.

Teaching, Drawing, May

John Ruskin (2012). “The Elements of Drawing”, p.13, Courier Corporation

There is in every animal's eye a dim image and gleam of humanity, a flash of strange light through which their life looks out and up to our great mystery of command over them, and claims the fellowship of the creature if not of the soul.

Eye, Animal, Light

John Ruskin (1855). “Notes on Some of the Principal Pictures Exhibited in the Rooms of the Royal Academy, the Old and New Societies of Painters in Water Colours, the Society of British Artists and the French Exhibition”

Will you not covet such power as this, and seek such throne as this, and be no more housewives, but queens? There is no putting by that crown; queens you must always be; queens to your lovers; queens to your husbands and sons; queens of higher mystery to the world beyond. . . . But alas! you are too often idle and careless queens, grasping at majesty in the least things, while you abdicate it in the greatest.

Queens, Husband, Son

Wherever the human mind is healthy and vigorous in all its proportions, great in imagination and emotion no less than in intellect, and not overborne by an undue or hardened pre-eminence of the mere reasoning faculties, there the grotesque will exist in full energy.

Imagination, Healthy, Mind

John Ruskin, John D. Rosenberg (1964). “The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from His Writings”, p.214, University of Virginia Press

People cannot live by lending money to one another.

Money, People, Lending

It is impossible, as impossible as to raise the dead, to restore anything that has ever been great or beautiful in architecture. That which I have insisted upon as the life of the whole, that spirit which is given only by the hand and eye of the workman, can never be recalled.

Beautiful, Eye, Hands

John Ruskin (2015). “The Seven Lamps of Architecture”, p.228, John Ruskin

Everything that you can see in the world around you presents itself to your eyes only as an arrangement of patches of different colors.

Eye, Color, Different

John Ruskin (2012). “The Elements of Drawing”, p.27, Courier Corporation

The repose necessary to all beauty is repose, not of inanition, nor of luxury, nor of irresolution, but the repose of magnificent energy and being; in action, the calmness of trust and determination; in rest, the consciousness of duty accomplished and of victory won; and this repose and this felicity can take place as well in the midst of trial and tempest, as beside the waters of comfort.

Determination, Luxury, Water

John Ruskin (1848). “Modern Painters”, p.107

Hope- the recognition, by true foresight, of better things to be reached here after.

Recognition, Foresight

John Ruskin (1871). “Fors Clavigera: Letters to the Workmen and Labourers of Great Britain. Index”, p.74

The very cheapness of literature is making even wise people forget that if a book is worth reading, it is worth buying. No book is worth anything which is not worth much; nor is it serviceable, until it has been read, and re-read, and loved, and loved again; and marked, so that you can refer to the passages you want in it.

Wise, Book, Reading

John Ruskin, John D. Rosenberg (1964). “The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from His Writings”, p.306, University of Virginia Press

He who is not actively kind is cruel!

Animal, Animal Rights, Kind

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.

Perfect, May, Energy

John Ruskin (1866). “The seven lamps of architecture”, p.166

He is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the sum of his works, the greatest number of the greatest ideas.

Art, Ideas, Numbers

Modern Painters vol. 1, pt. 1, ch. 2 (1843)

It is a strange thing how little in general people know about the sky. It is the part of creation in which nature has done more for the sake of pleasing man.

Nature, Men, Sky

"Modern Painters".

All great art is the expression of man's delight in God's work, not his own.

Art, Inspirational Life, Men

John Ruskin (1871). “Selections from the Writings of John Ruskin”, p.331

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.

Truth, Pride, Childhood

John Ruskin (1855). “Modern Painters: pt. 1. Of general principles. pt. 2 Of truth”, p.29

To do your own work well, whether it be for life or death.

Death, Quality, Literature

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

Contrast increases the splendor of beauty, but it disturbs its influence; it adds to its attractiveness, but diminishes its power.

Beauty, Add, Splendor

John Ruskin (1862). “pt. I. Of genral principles. pt. II. Of truth. v. 4. pt. v. Of mountain beauty”, p.37

Levi's station in life was the receipt of custom; and Peter's, the shore of Galilee; and Paul's, the antechambers of the High- Priest, which "station in life" each had to leave, with brief notice.

Levi's, Peter, Priests

John Ruskin (1871). “Works. (Author's Ed.)”, p.165

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