John Ruskin Quotes
-
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.
-
There is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.
-
They are the weakest-minded and the hardest-hearted men that most love change.
-
No peace was ever won from fate by subterfuge or argument; no peace is ever in store for any of us, but that which we shall win by victory over shame or sin--victory over the sin that oppresses, as well as over that which corrupts.
-
I know well that happiness is in little things.
-
There are no such things as Flowers there are only gladdened Leaves.
-
It is not how much one makes but to what purpose one spends.
-
Let every dawn be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close.
-
Labour without joy is base. Labour without sorrow is base. Sorrow without labour is base. Joy without labour is base.
-
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.
-
God shows us in Himself, strange as it may seem, not only authoritative perfection, but even the perfection of obedience--an obedience to His own laws; and in the cumbrous movement of those unwieldiest of his creatures we are reminded, even in His divine essence, of that attribute of uprightness in the human creature "that sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not.
-
Modern travelling is not travelling at all; it is merely being sent to a place, and very little different from becoming a parcel.
-
Life being very short, and the quiet hours of it few, we ought to waste none of them in reading valueless books.
-
That which is required in order to the attainment of accurate conclusions respecting the essence of the Beautiful is nothing morethan earnest, loving, and unselfish attention to our impressions of it.
-
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.
-
There is a working class - strong and happy - among both rich and poor: there is an idle class - weak, wicked, and miserable - among both rich and poor.
-
The man who accepts the laissez-faire doctrine would allow his garden to grow wild so that roses might fight it out with the weeds and the fittest might survive.
-
Modern education has devoted itself to the teaching of impudence, and then we complain that we can no longer control our mobs.
-
No human being, however great, or powerful, was ever so free as a fish.
-
The sculptor does not work for the anatomist, but for the common observer of life and nature.
-
I do not believe that ever any building was truly great, unless it had mighty masses, vigorous and deep, of shadow mingled with its surface.
-
To be able to ask a question clearly is two-thirds of the way to getting it answered.
-
You talk of the scythe of Time, and the tooth of Time: I tell you, Time is scytheless and toothless; it is we who gnaw like the worm - we who smite like the scythe. It is ourselves who abolish - ourselves who consume: we are the mildew, and the flame.
-
Butforme, the Alps and their people were a like beautiful in their snow, and their humanity; and I wanted, neither for them nor myself, sight of any thrones in heaven but the rocks, or of any spirits in heaven but the clouds.