John Ruskin Quotes
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Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become.
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Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.
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There is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.
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Geology does better in reclothing dry bones and revealing lost creations, than in tracing veins of lead and beds of iron; astronomy better in opening to us the houses of heaven than in teaching navigation; surgery better in investigating organiation than in setting limbs; only it is ordained that, for our encouragement, every step we make in science adds something to its practical applicabilities.
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There is but one question ultimately to be asked respecting every line you draw, Is it right or wrong? If right, it most assuredly is not a 'free' line, but an intensely continent, restrained and considered line; and the action of the hand in laying it is just as decisive, and just as 'free' as the hand of a first-rate surgeon in a critical incision.
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Ignorance, which is contented and clumsy, will produce what is imperfect, but not offensive. But ignorance discontented and dexterous, learning what it cannot understand, and imitating what it cannot enjoy, produces the most loathsome forms of manufacture that can disgrace or mislead humanity.
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What do you suppose makes all men look back to the time of childhood with so much regret (if their childhood has been, in any moderate degree, healthy or peaceful)? That rich charm, which the least possession had for us, was in consequence of the poorness of our treasures.
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A monk of La Trappe, a French soldier of the Imperial Guard, and a thriving mill-owner, supposing each a type, and no more than a type, of his class, are all interesting specimens of humanity, but narrow ones, - so narrow that even all the three together would not make up a perfect man.
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Large fortunes are all founded either on the occupation of land, or lending or the taxation of labor.
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God will put up with a great many things in the human heart, but there is one thing that He will not put up with in it--a second place. He who offers God a second place, offers Him no place.
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No good is ever done to society by the pictorial representation of its diseases.
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Along the iron veins that traverse the frame of our country, beat and flow the fiery pulses of its exertion, hotter and faster every hour. All vitality is concentrated through those throbbing arteries into the central cities; the country is passed over like a green sea by narrow bridges, and we are thrown back in continually closer crowds on the city gates.
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Modern science gives lectures on botany, to show there is no such thing as a flower; on humanity, to show there is no such thing as a man; and on theology, to show there is no such thing as a God. No such thing as a man, but only a mechanism, No such thing as a God, but only a series of forces.
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There are no such things as Flowers there are only gladdened Leaves.
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It is impossible, as impossible as to raise the dead, to restore anything that has ever been great or beautiful in architecture. That which I have insisted upon as the life of the whole, that spirit which is given only by the hand and eye of the workman, can never be recalled.
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Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives, the cumulative experience of many masters of craftsmanship. Quality also marks the search for an ideal after necessity has been satisfied and mere usefulness achieved.
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Skill is the unified force of experience, intellect and passion in their operation.
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The first test of a truly great man is his humility. By humility I don't mean doubt of his powers or hesitation in speaking his opinion, but merely an understanding of the relationship of what he can say and what he can do.
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..the art of becoming 'rich', in the common sense, is not absolutely nor finally the art of accumulating much money for ourselves, but also of contriving that our neighbour shall have less. In accurate terms, it is 'the art of establishing the maximum inequality in your own favour'.
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Will you not covet such power as this, and seek such throne as this, and be no more housewives, but queens? There is no putting by that crown; queens you must always be; queens to your lovers; queens to your husbands and sons; queens of higher mystery to the world beyond. . . . But alas! you are too often idle and careless queens, grasping at majesty in the least things, while you abdicate it in the greatest.
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What does cookery mean? It means the knowledge of Medea and of Circe, and of Calypso, and Sheba. It means knowledge of all herbs, and fruits, and balms and spices... It means the economy of your great-grandmother and the science of modern chemistry, and French art, and Arabian hospitality. It means, in fine, that you are to see imperatively that everyone has something nice to eat.
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That admiration of the 'neat but not gaudy,' which is commonly reported to have influenced the devil when he painted his tail pea green.
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Labour without joy is base. Labour without sorrow is base. Sorrow without labour is base. Joy without labour is base.
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In one point of view, Gothic is not only the best, but the only rational architecture, as being that which can fit itself most easily to all services, vulgar or noble.