John Ruskin Quotes
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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.
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All of one's life is music, if one touches the notes rightly, and in time.
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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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Never has interest in art been so high, and never has quality been so low.
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There are many religions, but there is only one morality.
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He who has learned what is commonly considered the whole art of painting, that is, the art of representing any natural object faithfully, has as yet only learned the language by which his thoughts are to be expressed.
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Your labor only may be sold, your soul must not.
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There is in every animal's eye a dim image and gleam of humanity, a flash of strange light through which their life looks out and up to our great mystery of command over them, and claims the fellowship of the creature if not of the soul.
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The plea of ignorance will never take away our responsibilities.
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The Spirit power begins in directing the Animal power to other than egoistic ends.
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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.
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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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The very cheapness of literature is making even wise people forget that if a book is worth reading, it is worth buying. No book is worth anything which is not worth much; nor is it serviceable, until it has been read, and re-read, and loved, and loved again; and marked, so that you can refer to the passages you want in it.
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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.
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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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We must note carefully what distinction there is between a healthy and a diseased love of change; for as it was in healthy love of change that the Gothic architecture rose, it was partly in consequence of diseased love of change that it was destroyed.
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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.
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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.
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Morality does not depend on religion.
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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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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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Men say their pinnacles point to heaven. Why, so does every tree that buds, and every bird that rises as it sings. Men say their aisles are good for worship. Why, so is every mountain glen and rough sea-shore. But this they have of distinct and indisputable glory,--that their mighty walls were never raised, and never shall be, but by men who love and aid each other in their weakness.
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Science deals exclusively with things as they are in themselves; and art exclusively with things as they affect the human sense and human soul.
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Education is the leading of human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them.