John Ruskin Quotes
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People are always expecting to get peace in heaven: but you know whatever peace they get there will be ready-made. Whatever making of peace they can be blest for, must be on the earth here.
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The entire object of true education is to make people not merely do the right things, but enjoy the right things — not merely industrious, but to love industry — not merely learned, but to love knowledge — not merely pure, but to love purity — not merely just, but to hunger and thirst after justice.
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The best work never was and never will be done for money.
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There is no action so slight or so mean but it may be done to a great purpose, and ennobled thereby.
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To do your own work well, whether it be for life or death.
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Education is the leading of human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them.
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The last act crowns the play.
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Never has interest in art been so high, and never has quality been so low.
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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.
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Color is, in brief terms, the type of love. Hence it is especially connected with the blossoming of the earth; and again, with its fruits; also, with the spring and fall of the leaf, and with the morning and evening of the day, in order to show the waiting of love about the birth and death of man.
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Society has sacrificed its virtues to the Goddess of Getting Along.
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The path of a good woman is indeed strewn with flowers; but they rise behind her steps, not before them.
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There is rough work to be done, and rough men must do it; there is gentle work to be done, and gentlemen must do it.
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It is better to lose your pride with someone you love rather than to lose that someone you love with your useless pride.
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The Spirit power begins in directing the Animal power to other than egoistic ends.
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One of the prevailing sources of misery and crime is in the generally accepted assumption, that because things have been wrong a long time, it is impossible they will ever be right.
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All that is good in art is the expression of one soul talking to another, and is precious according to the greatness of the soul that utters it.
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If the design of the building be originally bad, the only virtue it can ever possess will be signs of antiquity.
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If it is the love of that which your work represents – if, being a landscape painter, it is love of hills and trees that moves you – if, being a figure painter, it is love of human beauty, and human soul that moves you – if, being a flower or animal painter, it is love, and wonder, and delight in petal and in limb that move you, then the Spirit is upon you, and the earth is yours, and the fullness thereof.
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If some people really see angels where others see only empty space, let them paint the angels: only let not anybody else think they can paint an angel too, on any calculated principles of the angelic.
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To speak and act truth with constancy and precision is nearly as difficult, and perhaps as meretorious, as to speak it under intimidation or penalty.
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We may, without offending any laws of good taste, require of an architect, as we do of a novelist, that he should be not only correct, but entertaining.
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Not without design does God write the music of our lives. Be it ours to learn the time, and not be discouraged at the rests. If we say sadly to ourselves, "There is no music in a rest," let us not forget " there is the making of music in it." The making of music is often a slow and painful process in this life. How patiently God works to teach us! How long He waits for us to learn the lesson!
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The only way to understand these difficult parts of the Bible, or even to approach them with safety, is first to read and obey the easy ones.