John Ruskin Quotes
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It is a strange thing how little in general people know about the sky. It is the part of creation in which nature has done more for the sake of pleasing man.
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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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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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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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I believe that the sight is a more important thing than the drawing.
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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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The wisest men are wise to the full in death.
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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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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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Curiosity is a gift, a capacity of pleasure in knowing, which if you destroy, you make yourself cold and dull.
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It takes a great deal of living to get a little deal of learning.
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The virtue of the imagination is its reaching, by intuition and intensity, a more essential truth than is seen at the surface of things.
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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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They are good furniture pictures, unworthy of praise, and undeserving of blame.