Quotes by Ruskin, John

"I look upon those pitiful concretions of lime and clay which spring up, in mildewed forwardness, out of the kneaded fields about our capital... not merely with the careless disgust of an offended eye, not merely with sorrow for a desecrated landscape, but with a painful foreboding that the roots of our national greatness must be deeply cankered when they are thus loosely struck in their native ground. The crowded tenements of a struggling and restless population differ only from the tents of the Arab or the Gipsy by their less healthy openness to the air of heaven, and less happy choice of their spot of earth; by their sacrifice of liberty without the gain of rest, and of stability without the luxury of change."

Ruskin, John on life   

"Civilization is the making of civil persons."

Ruskin, John on civilization   

"The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love color the most."

Ruskin, John on color   

"Of all God's gifts to the sighted man, color is holiest, the most divine, the most solemn."

Ruskin, John on color   

"A thing is worth what it can do for you, not what you choose to pay for it."

Ruskin, John on cost   

"We have seen when the earth had to be prepared for the habitation of man, a veil, as it were, of intermediate being was spread between him and its darkness, in which were joined in a subdued measure, the stability and insensibility of the earth, and the passion and perishing of mankind."

Ruskin, John on creation   

"Cursing is invoking the assistance of a spirit to help you inflict suffering. Swearing on the other hand, is invoking, only the witness of a spirit to an statement you wish to make."

Ruskin, John on curses   

"God has lent us the earth for our life; it is a great entail. It belongs as much to those who are to come after us, and whose names are already written in the book of creation, as to us; and we have no right, by anything that we do or neglect, to involve them in unnecessary penalties, or deprive them of benefits which it was in our power to bequeath. "

Ruskin, John on uncategorised   

"Our duty is to preserve what the past has had to say for itself, and to say for ourselves what shall be true for the future. "

Ruskin, John on uncategorised   

"Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts, the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art. Not one of these books can be understood unless we read the two others, but of the three the only trustworthy one is the last. "

Ruskin, John on uncategorised   

"The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something, and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion, — all in one. "

Ruskin, John on vision