John Ruskin Quotes
-
The repose necessary to all beauty is repose, not of inanition, nor of luxury, nor of irresolution, but the repose of magnificent energy and being; in action, the calmness of trust and determination; in rest, the consciousness of duty accomplished and of victory won; and this repose and this felicity can take place as well in the midst of trial and tempest, as beside the waters of comfort.
-
All the best things and treasures of this world are not to be produced by each generation for itself; but we are all intended, not to carve our work in snow that will melt, but each and all of us to be continually rolling a great white gathering snow-ball, higher and higher, larger and larger, along the Alps of human power.
-
I used to lie down on the grass and draw the blades as they grew - until every square foot of meadow, or mossy bank, became a possession to me.
-
Men were not intended to work with the accuracy of tools, to be precise and perfect in all their actions.
-
You might sooner get lightning out of incense smoke than true action or passion out of your modern English religion.
-
One who does not know when to die, does not know how to live.
-
Superstition, in all times and among all nations, is the fear of a spirit whose passions are those of a man, whose acts are the acts of a man; who is present in some places, not in others; who makes no places holy and not others; who is kind to one person, unkind to another; who is pleased or angry according to the degree of attention you pay him, or praise you refuse to him; who is hostile generally to human pleasure, but may be bribed by sacrifice of a part of that pleasure into permitting the rest. This, whatever form of faith it colors, is the essence of superstition.
-
Skill is the unified force of experience, intellect and passion in their operation.
-
No nation can last which has made a mob of itself, however generous at heart.
-
The child who desires education will be bettered by it; the child who dislikes it disgraced.
-
Greater completion marks the progress of art, absolute completion usually its decline.
-
Your honesty is not to be based either on religion or policy. Both your religion and policy must be based on it. Your honesty must be based, as the sun is, in vacant heaven; poised, as the lights in the firmament, which have rule over the day and over the night.
-
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.
-
In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: They must be fit for it. They must not do too much of it. And they must have a sense of success in it.
-
An unimaginative person can neither be reverent or kind.
-
Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.
-
I have not written in vain if I have heretofore done anything towards diminishing the reputation of the Renaissance landscape painting.
-
Everything that you can see in the world around you presents itself to your eyes only as an arrangement of patches of different colors.
-
A nation which lives a pastoral and innocent life never decorates the shepherd's staff or the plough-handle; but races who live by depredation and slaughter nearly always bestow exquisite ornaments on the quiver, the helmet, and the spear.
-
Levi's station in life was the receipt of custom; and Peter's, the shore of Galilee; and Paul's, the antechambers of the High- Priest,- which 'station in life' each had to leave, with brief notice.
-
No one can ask honestly or hopefully to be delivered from temptation unless he has himself honestly and firmly determined to do the best he can to keep out of it.
-
Cheerfulness is as natural to the heart of a man in strong health as color to his cheek; and wherever there is habitual gloom there must be either bad air, unwholesome food, improperly severe labor, or erring habits of life.
-
Music when healthy, is the teacher of perfect order, and when depraved, the teacher of perfect disorder.
-
See that your children be taught, not only the labors of the earth, but the loveliness of it.