John Ruskin Quotes
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I've seen the Rhine with younger wave, O'er every obstacle to rave. I see the Rhine in his native wild Is still a mighty mountain child.
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The constant duty of every man to his fellows is to ascertain his own powers and special gifts, and to strengthen them for the help of others.
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You will never love art well until you love what she mirrors better.
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An infinitude of tenderness is the chief gift and inheritance of all truly great men.
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In the utmost solitudes of nature, the existence of hell seems to me as legibly declared by a thousand spiritual utterances as that of heaven.
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Men are merely on a lower or higher stage of an eminence, whose summit is God's throne infinitely above all; and there is just as much reason for the wisest as for the simplest man being discontent with his position, as respects the real quantity of knowledge he possesses.
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No day is without its innocent hope.
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If you do not wish for His kingdom do not pray for it. But if you do you must do more than pray for it, you must work for it.
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Compulsory education... It is a painful, continual, and difficult work; to be done by kindness, by watching, by warning, by precept, and by praise, — but above all — by example.
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I desire ... to leave this one great fact clearly stated. THERE IS NO WEALTH BUT LIFE.
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An artist should be well read in the best books, and thoroughly high bred, both in heart and bearing. In a word, he should be fit for the best society, and should keef out of it.
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The beauty of the animal form is in exact proportion to the amount of moral and intellectual virtue expressed by it.
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The spirit needs several sorts of food of which knowledge is only one.
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Don't just look at buildings ... watch them.
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Greatness is the aggregation of minuteness; nor can its sublimity be felt truthfully by any mind unaccustomed to the affectionate watching of what is least.
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Imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know in life.
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So far as I have myself observed, the distinctive character of a child is to live always in the tangible present.
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You cannot get anything out of nature or from God by gambling; only out of your neighbor.
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It is not the church we want, but the sacrifice; not the emotion of admiration, but the act of adoration; not the gift, but the giving.
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I would have, then, our ordinary dwelling-houses built to last, and built to be lovely; as rich and full of pleasantness as may be within and without: . . . with such differences as might suit and express each man's character and occupation, and partly his history.
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Absolute ugliness is admitted as rarely as perfect beauty; but degrees of it more or less distinct are associated with whatever has the nature of death and sin, just as beauty is associated with what has the nature of virtue and of life.
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Wherever men are noble, they love bright colour; and wherever they can live healthily, bright colour is given them—in sky, sea, flowers, and living creatures.
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The wisest men are wise to the full in death.
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When I have been unhappy, I have heard an opera... and it seemed the shrieking of winds; when I am happy, a sparrow's chirp is delicious to me. But it is not the chirp that makes me happy, but I that make it sweet.