John Ruskin

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

— John Ruskin

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

— John Ruskin

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.

— John Ruskin

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.

— John Ruskin

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.

— John Ruskin

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

— John Ruskin

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

— John Ruskin

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

— John Ruskin

Spiritual power begins by directing animal power to other than egoistic ends.

— John Ruskin

Fit yourself for the best society, and then, never enter it.

— John Ruskin

It does not matter what the whip is; it is none the less a whip, because you have cut thongs for it out of your own souls.

— John Ruskin

The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.

— John Ruskin

If a great thing can be done, it can be done easily, but this ease is like the of ease of a tree blossoming after long years of gathering strength.

— John Ruskin

Success by the laws of competition signifies a victory over others by obtaining the direction and profits of their work. This is the real source of all great riches.

— John Ruskin

No one can become rich by the efforts of only their toil, but only by the discovery of some method of taxing the labor of others.

— John Ruskin

In health of mind and body, men should see with their own eyes, hear and speak without trumpets, walk on their feet, not on wheels, and work and war with their arms, not with engine-beams, nor rifles warranted to kill twenty men at a shot before you can see them.

— John Ruskin

Men don't and can't live by exchanging articles, but by producing them. They don't live by trade, but by work. Give up that foolish and vain title of Trades Unions; and take that of laborers Unions.

— John Ruskin

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.

— John Ruskin

Government and cooperation are in all things the laws of life. Anarchy and competition, the laws of death.

— John Ruskin

The best thing in life aren't things.

— John Ruskin

The common practice of keeping up appearances with society is a mere selfish struggle of the vain with the vain.

— John Ruskin

The higher a man stands, the more the word vulgar becomes unintelligible to him.

— John Ruskin

What right have you to take the word wealth, which originally meant well-being, and degrade and narrow it by confining it to certain sorts of material objects measured by money.

— John Ruskin

Summer is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces up, snow is exhilarating; there is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.

— John Ruskin

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces up, snow is exhilarating; there is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.

— John Ruskin

The best work never was and never will be done for money.

— John Ruskin

It is excellent discipline for an author to feel that he must say all that he has to say in the fewest possible words, or his reader is sure to skip them.

— John Ruskin

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.

— John Ruskin

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.

— John Ruskin

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.

— John Ruskin

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.

— John Ruskin