John Ruskin Quotes
-
The highest thoughts are those which are least dependent on language, and the dignity of any composition and praise to which it is entitled are in exact proportion to its dependency of language or expression.
-
Education is the leading of human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them.
-
In the range of inorganic nature. I doubt if any object can be found more perfectly beautiful than a fresh, deep snowdrift, seen under warm light.
-
Don't just look at buildings ... watch them.
-
On the whole, it is patience which makes the final difference between those who succeed or fail in all things. All the greatest people have it in an infinite degree, and among the less, the patient weak ones always conquer the impatient strong.
-
God is a kind Father. He sets us all in the places where he wishes us to be employed. He chooses work for every creature which will be delightful to them if they do it simply and humbly. He gives us always strength enough and sense enough for what he wants us to do.
-
I had no companions to quarrel with, nobody to assist, and nobody to thank... the evil consequence of all this was not, however, what might perhaps have been expected, that I grew up selfish or non affectionate; but that, when affection did come, it came with a violence utterly rampant and unmanageable.
-
All of one's life is music, if one touches the notes rightly, and in time.
-
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.
-
Perfect taste is the faculty of receiving the greatest possible pleasure from those material sources which are attractive to oar moral nature in its purity and perfection.
-
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.
-
At every moment of our lives we should be trying to find out, not in what we differ with other people, but in what we agree with them.
-
Never has interest in art been so high, and never has quality been so low.
-
Your labor only may be sold, your soul must not.
-
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.
-
We are only advancing in life, whose hearts are getting softer, our blood warmer, our brains quicker, and our spirits entering into living peace.
-
Morality does not depend on religion.
-
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.
-
The beauty of the animal form is in exact proportion to the amount of moral and intellectual virtue expressed by it.
-
The proof of a thing's being right is that it has power over the heart; that it excites us, wins us, or helps us.
-
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.
-
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.
-
The plea of ignorance will never take away our responsibilities.
-
The virtue of the imagination is its reaching, by intuition and intensity, a more essential truth than is seen at the surface of things.