John Ruskin Quotes
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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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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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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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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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Science lives only in quiet places, and with odd people, mostly poor.
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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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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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You cannot get anything out of nature or from God by gambling; only out of your neighbor.
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No day is without its innocent hope.
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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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The wisest men are wise to the full in death.
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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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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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He who is not actively kind is cruel!
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They are good furniture pictures, unworthy of praise, and undeserving of blame.
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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 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.