John Ruskin Quotes about Beauty

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Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance.

Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance.

John Ruskin

Love, Beauty, Beautiful

Stones of Venice vol. 1, ch. 2, sec. 17 (1851)

Endurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty.

John Ruskin

Beauty, Patience, Perseverance

John Ruskin, Christine Roth (2004). “The Two Paths”, p.88, Parlor Press LLC

The noble grotesque involves the true appreciation of beauty.

John Ruskin

Beauty, Appreciation, Noble

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

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

John Ruskin

Beauty, Add, Splendor

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

Nothing can be beautiful which is not true.

John Ruskin

Beauty, Beautiful

John Ruskin, Frederick William Roe (2013). “Selections and Essays”, p.69, Courier Corporation

That which is required in order to the attainment of accurate conclusions respecting the essence of the Beautiful is nothing morethan earnest, loving, and unselfish attention to our impressions of it.

John Ruskin

Beauty, Beautiful, Order

John Ruskin (1848). “Modern Painters ...: pt. 3. Of the imaginative and theoretic faculties. 4th ed”, p.22

In all things that live there are certain irregularities, and deficiencies which are not only signs of life, but sources of beauty. No human face is exactly the same in its lines on each side, no leaf perfect in its lobes, no branch in its symmetry.

John Ruskin

Beauty, Perfect, Branches

John Ruskin (1854). “On the nature of Gothic architecture: and herein of the true functions of the workman in art. Being the greater part of the 6th chapter of the 2nd vol. of 'Stones of Venice'. [48 p.].”, p.14

There is a certain period of the soul-culture when it begins to interfere with some of characters of typical beauty belonging to the bodily frame, the stirring of the intellect wearing down the flesh, and the moral enthusiasm burning its way out to heaven, through the emaciation of the earthen vessel; and there is, in this indication of subduing the mortal by the immortal part, an ideal glory of perhaps a purer and higher range than that of the more perfect material form. We conceive, I think, more nobly of the weak presence of Paul than of, the fair and ruddy countenance of David.

John Ruskin

Beauty, Character, Thinking

Like other beautiful things in this world, its end (that of a shaft) is to be beautiful; and, in proportion to its beauty, it receives permission to be otherwise useless. We do not blame emeralds and rubies because we cannot make them into heads of hammers.

John Ruskin

Beauty, Beautiful, Hammers

John Ruskin (2013). “The Stones of Venice -: The Sea Stories”, p.82, Cosimo, Inc.