Quotes by Ruskin, John

"There is no wealth but life."

Ruskin, John on life   

"The anger of a person who is strong, can always bide its time."

Ruskin, John on anger   

"No person who is well bred, kind and modest is ever offensively plain; all real deformity means want for manners or of heart."

Ruskin, John on appearance   

"An architect should live as little in cities as a painter. Send him to our hills, and let him study there what nature understands by a buttress, and what by a dome."

Ruskin, John on architecture   

"We may live without her, and worship without her, but we cannot remember without her. How cold is all history, how lifeless all imagery, compared to that which the living nation writes, and the uncorrupted marble bears!"

Ruskin, John on architecture   

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"No person who is not a great sculptor or painter can be an architect. If he is not a sculptor or painter, he can only be a builder."

Ruskin, John on architecture   

"No architecture is so haughty as that which is simple."

Ruskin, John on architecture   

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"When we build, let us think that we build for ever."

Ruskin, John on architecture   

"They are good furniture pictures, unworthy of praise, and undeserving of blame."

Ruskin, John on mediocrity   

"It is not how much one makes but to what purpose one spends."

Ruskin, John on money   

"Mountains are to the rest of the body of the earth, what violent muscular action is to the body of man. The muscles and tendons of its anatomy are, in the mountain, brought out with force and convulsive energy, full of expression, passion, and strength."

Ruskin, John on mountains   

"Music when healthy, is the teacher of perfect order, and when depraved, the teacher of perfect disorder."

Ruskin, John on music   

"Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts -- the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art."

Ruskin, John on nations   

"The strength and power of a country depends absolutely on the quantity of good men and women in it."

Ruskin, John on nations   

"Of all the things that oppress me, this sense of the evil working of nature herself --my disgust at her barbarity --clumsiness --darkness --bitter mockery of herself --is the most desolating."

Ruskin, John on nature   

"The sky is the part of creation in which nature has done for the sake of pleasing man."

Ruskin, John on nature   

"Obey something, and you will have a chance to learn what is best to obey. But if you begin by obeying nothing, you will end by obeying the devil and all his invited friends."

Ruskin, John on obedience   

"In old times men used their powers of painting to show the objects of faith, in later times they use the objects of faith to show their powers of painting."

Ruskin, John on painters and painting   

"You may either win your peace or buy it: win it, by resistance to evil; buy it, by compromise with evil."

Ruskin, John on peace
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"People are eternally divided into two classes, the believer, builder, and praiser, and the unbeliever, destroyer and critic."

Ruskin, John on people   

"No good work whatever can be perfect, and the demand for perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art."

Ruskin, John on perfection   

"No good is ever done to society by the pictorial representation of its diseases."

Ruskin, John on photography   

"The last act crowns the play."

Ruskin, John on plays   

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"What distinguishes a great artist from a weak one is first their sensibility and tenderness; second, their imagination, and third, their industry."

Ruskin, John on art   

"I have seen, and heard, much of Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face."

Ruskin, John on art   

"No art can be noble which is incapable of expressing thought, and no art is capable of expressing thought which does not change."

Ruskin, John on art   

"Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness."

Ruskin, John on possessions   

"In general, pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes."

Ruskin, John on pride   

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"Punishment is the last and the least effective instrument in the hands of the legislator for the prevention of crime."

Ruskin, John on punishment   

"What is the cheapest to you now is likely to be the dearest to you in the end."

Ruskin, John on quality
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"Whether for life or death, do your own work well."

Ruskin, John on quality   

"It is his restraint that is honorable to a person, not their liberty."

Ruskin, John on restraint   

"Nothing is ever done beautifully which is done in rivalship: or nobly, which is done in pride."

Ruskin, John on rivalry   

"The work of science is to substitute facts for appearances, and demonstrations for impressions."

Ruskin, John on science   

"Let every dawn of the morning be to you as the beginning of life. And let every setting of the sun be to you as its close. Then let everyone of these short lives leave its sure record of some kindly thing done for others; some good strength of knowledge gained for yourself."

Ruskin, John on service   

"It is far more difficult to be simple than to be complicated; far more difficult to sacrifice skill and easy execution in the proper place, than to expand both indiscriminately."

Ruskin, John on simplicity   

"Nearly all the powerful people of this age are unbelievers, the best of them in doubt and misery, the most in plodding hesitation, doing as well as they can, what practical work lies at hand."

Ruskin, John on skepticism   

"Skill is the unified force of experience, intellect and passion in their operation."

Ruskin, John on skill   

"The distinguishing sign of slavery is to have a price, and to be bought for it."

Ruskin, John on slavery   

"Some slaves are scoured to their work by whips, others by their restlessness and ambition."

Ruskin, John on slavery