Famous Quotes by John Ruskin
- The distinguishing sign of slavery is to have a price, and to be bought for it. More
- Give a little love to a child, and you get a great deal back. More
- Men don’t and can’t live by exchanging articles, but by producing them. They don’t live by... More
- Take any noble musical air, and you find, on examining it, that not one even of the faintest or... More
- Human work must be done honourably and thoroughly, because we are now Men;Mwhether we ever expect... More
- There are no such things as Flowers—there are only gladdened Leaves. More
- The first duty of government is to see that people have food, fuel, and clothes. The second, that... More
- I have seen, and heard, much of Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a... More
- It does not matter what the whip is; it is none the less a whip, because you have cut thongs for... More
- No person who is not a great sculptor or painter can be an architect. If he is not a sculptor or... More
- Life without industry is guilt, industry without art is brutality. More
- It is eminently a weariable faculty, eminently delicate, and incapable of bearing fatigue; so... More
- Whatever difference, involving inferiority, there exists between him and Dante, in his... More
- Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery. More
- The higher a man stands, the more the word “vulgar” becomes unintelligible to him. More
- We have seen when the earth had to be prepared for the habitation of man, a veil, as it were, of... More
- They are good furniture pictures, unworthy of praise, and undeserving of blame. More
- Mountains are to the rest of the body of the earth, what violent muscular action is to the body... More
- He who has learned what is commonly considered the whole art of painting, that is, the art of... More
- He is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the sum of his works, the greatest number of the... More
- It is in this power of saying everything, and yet saying nothing too plainly, that the perfection... More
- Nothing can be true which is either complete or vacant; every touch is false which does not... More
- To know anything well involves a profound sensation of ignorance. More
- That which is required in order to the attainment of accurate conclusions respecting the essence... More
- Nearly all our powerful men in this age of the world are unbelievers; the best of them in doubt... More
- There is never vulgarity in a whole truth, however commonplace. It may be unimportant or painful.... More
- All that we call ideal in Greek or any other art, because to us it is false and visionary, was,... More
- All violent feelings have the same effect. They produce in us a falseness in all our impressions... More
- To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion—all in one. More
- The essence of lying is in deception, not in words. More
- All great and beautiful work has come of first gazing without shrinking into the darkness. More
- Value is the life-giving power of anything; cost, the quantity of labour required to produce it;... More
- What do we, as a nation, care about books? How much do you think we spend altogether on our... More
- Now their separate characters are briefly these. The man’s power is active, progressive,... More
- In health of mind and body, men should see with their own eyes, hear and speak without trumpets,... More
- It is impossible, as impossible as to raise the dead, to restore anything that has ever been... More
- Of all the things that oppress me, this sense of the evil working of nature herself—my disgust... More
- Men are more evanescent than pictures, yet one sorrows for lost friends, and pictures are my... More
- Life being very short, and the quiet hours of it few, we ought to waste none of them in reading... More
- How long most people would look at the best book before they would give the price of a large... More
- You might sooner get lightning out of incense smoke than true action or passion out of your... More
- All books are divisible into two classes: the books of the hour, and the books of all time. More
- Nearly all the evils in the Church have arisen from bishops desiring power more than light. They... More
- Be sure that you go to the author to get at his meaning, not to find yours. More
- You may chisel a boy into shape, as you would a rock, or hammer him into it, if he be of a better... More
- When we build, let us think that we build for ever. More
- Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts--the book of their deeds, the book... More
- Borrowers are nearly always ill-spenders, and it is with lent money that all evil is mainly done... More
- Taste is the only morality.... Tell me what you like and I’ll tell you what you are. More
- Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness. More
- We may live without her, and worship without her, but we cannot remember without her. How cold is... More
- I look upon those pitiful concretions of lime and clay which spring up, in mildewed forwardness,... More
- If men lived like men indeed, their houses would be temples—temples which we should hardly dare... More
- Along the iron veins that traverse the frame of our country, beat and flow the fiery pulses of... More
- How false is the conception, how frantic the pursuit, of that treacherous phantom which men call... More
- An architect should live as little in cities as a painter. Send him to our hills, and let him... More
- I love Coleridge ... and I am very willing to allow that he has more imagination than Wordsworth,... More
- Better the rudest work that tells a story or records a fact, than the richest without meaning. More
- Therefore, when we build, let us think that we build for ever. More
- I believe the right question to ask, respecting all ornament, is simply this: Was it done with... More
- The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most. More
- It seems a fantastic paradox, but it is nevertheless a most important truth, that no architecture... More
- The great cry that rises from all our manufacturing cities, louder than the furnace blast, is all... More
- Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies... More
- It is not, truly speaking, the labour that is divided; but the men: divided into mere segments of... More
- I have not written in vain if I have heretofore done anything towards diminishing the reputation... More
- It is perhaps the principal admirableness of the Gothic schools of architecture, that they... More
- No architecture is so haughty as that which is simple. More
- All great art is the work of the whole living creature, body and soul, and chiefly of the soul. More
- All things are literally better, lovelier, and more beloved for the imperfections which have been... More
- The art which we may call generally art of the wayside, as opposed to that which is the business... More
- Men were not intended to work with the accuracy of tools, to be precise and perfect in all their... More
- We have much studied and much perfected, of late, the great civilized invention of the division... More
- Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together. More
- You may either win your peace or buy it: win it, by resistance to evil; buy it, by compromise... More
- No human being, however great, or powerful, was ever so free as a fish. More
- To make your children capable of honesty is the beginning of education. More
- Your honesty is not to be based either on religion or policy. Both your religion and policy must... More
- The first duty of a state is to see that every child born therein shall be well housed, clothed,... More
- There is no wealth but life. More
- Soldiers of the ploughshare as well as soldiers of the sword. More
- That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings. More
- Whereas it has long been known and declared that the poor have no right to the property of the... More
- Let us reform our schools, and we shall find little reform needed in our prisons. More
- Architecture ... the adaptation of form to resist force. More
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