John Ruskin Quotes
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One evening, when I was yet in my nurse's arms, I wanted to touch the tea urn, which was boiling merrily ... My nurse would have taken me away from the urn, but my mother said "Let him touch it." So I touched it - and that was my first lesson in the meaning of liberty.
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We have seen when the earth had to be prepared for the habitation of man, a veil, as it were, of intermediate being was spread between him and its darkness, in which were joined in a subdued measure, the stability and insensibility of the earth, and the passion and perishing of mankind.
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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 names of great painters are like passing-bells: in the name of Velasquez you hear sounded the fall of Spain; .in the name of Titian, that of Venice; in the name of Leonardo, that of Milan; in the name of Raphael, that of Rome. And there is profound justice in this, for in proportion to the nobleness of the power is the guilt of its use for purposes vain or vile; and hitherto the greater the art, the more surely has it been used, and used solely, for the decoration of pride or the provoking of sensuality.
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Our purity of taste is best tested by its universality, for if we can only admire this thing or that, we maybe use that our cause for liking is of a finite and false nature.
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To cultivate sympathy you must be among living creatures, and thinking about them; and to cultivate admiration, you must be among beautiful things and looking at them.
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The Training which Makes Men Happiest in themselves ... also Makes Them Most Serviceable to Others.
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See! This our fathers did for us.
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God never imposes a duty without giving time to do it.
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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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But whether thus submissively or not, at least be sure that you go to the author to get at his meaning, not to find yours.
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And remember, child, that nothing is ever done beautifully, which is done in rivalship; or nobly, which is done in pride.
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Some slaves are scoured to their work by whips, others by their restlessness and ambition.
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I desire ... to leave this one great fact clearly stated. THERE IS NO WEALTH BUT LIFE.
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Sculpture is not the mere cutting of the form of anything in stone; it is the cutting of the effect of it. Very often the true form, in the marble, would not be in the least like itself.
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The spirit needs several sorts of food of which knowledge is only one.
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There are many religions, but there is only one morality.
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Sky is the part of creation in which Nature has done more for the sake of pleasing man, more for the sole and evident purpose of talking to him and teaching him, than in any other of her works, and it is just the part in which we least attend to her.
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The whole difference between a man of genius and other men, it has been said a thousand times, and most truly, is that the first remains in great part a child, seeing with the large eyes of children, in perpetual wonder, not conscious of much knowledge--conscious, rather of infinite ignorance, and yet infinite power; a fountain of eternal admiration, delight, and creative force within him meeting the ocean of visible and governable things around him.
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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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What is the cheapest to you now is likely to be the dearest to you in the end.
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The art of drawing which is of more real importance to the human race than that of writing...should be taught to every child just as writing is.
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Know thyself, for through thyself only thou canst know God.
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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.