John Ruskin

The art which we may call generally art of the wayside, as opposed to that which is the business of men's lives, is, in the best sense of the word, Grotesque.

Nothing can be beautiful which is not true.

A book worth reading is worth buying.

The imagination is never governed, it is always the ruling and divine power.

Endurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty.

When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.

What do we, as a nation, care about books? How much do you think we spend altogether on our libraries, public or private, as compared with what we spend on our horses?

Modern education has devoted itself to the teaching of impudence, and then we complain that we can no longer control our mobs.

There is no wealth but life.

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.

If a book is worth reading it is worth buying.

Whereas it has long been known and declared that the poor have no right to the property of the rich, I wish it also to be known and declared that the rich have no right to the property of the poor.

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.

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.

There is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.

There is a working class strong and happy among both rich and poor there is an idle class weak wicked and miserable among both rich and poor.

It seems a fantastic paradox but it is nevertheless a most important truth that no architecture can be truly noble which is not imperfect.

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.

As in the instances of alchemy, astrology, witchcraft, and other such popular creeds, political economy, has a plausible idea at the root of it.

When love and skill work together expect a masterpiece.

Every great person is always being helped by everybody; for their gift is to get good out of all things and all persons.

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

Man's only true happiness is to live in hope of something to be won by him. Reverence something to be worshipped by him, and love something to be cherished by him, forever.

Education is the leading of human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them.

And whether consciously or not, you must be in many a heart enthroned: queens you must always be: queens to your lovers; queens to your husbands and sons; queens of higher mystery to the world beyond, which bows itself, and will forever bow, before the myrtle crown, and the stainless scepter of womanhood.

I have not written in vain if I have heretofore done anything towards diminishing the reputation of the Renaissance landscape painting.

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.

When a man is all wrapped up in himself he makes a pretty small package.

October's foliage yellows with his cold.

A great thing can only be done by a great person and they do it without effort.

In one point of view Gothic is not only the best but the only rational architecture as being that which can fit itself most easily to all services vulgar or noble.

Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you.

It is in this power of saying everything, and yet saying nothing too plainly, that the perfection of art consists.

Contrast increases the splendor of beauty but it disturbs its influence it adds to its attractiveness but diminishes its power.

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.

The finer the nature, the more flaws it will show through the clearness of it; and it is a law of this universe that the best things shall be seldomest seen in their best form.

Living without an aim is like sailing without a compass.

The first duty of government is to see that people have food, fuel, and clothes. The second, that they have means of moral and intellectual education.

Let every dawn be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close.

We require from buildings two kinds of goodness: first, the doing their practical duty well: then that they be graceful and pleasing in doing it.

No architecture is so haughty as that which is simple.

Better the rudest work that tells a story or records a fact, than the richest without meaning.

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

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

Do not think of your faults still less of others faults look for what is good and strong and try to imitate it. Your faults will drop off like dead leaves when their time comes.

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

The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world... to see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion all in one.

Imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know of life. It is the sign of life in a mortal body, that is to say, of a state of progress and change. Nothing that lives is, or can be rigidly perfect; part of it is decaying, part nascent.

Not only is there but one way of doing things rightly, but there is only one way of seeing them, and that is, seeing the whole of them.

Every great person is always being helped by everybody for their gift is to get good out of all things and all persons.

One can't be angry when one looks at a penguin.

He is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the sum of his works, the greatest number of the greatest ideas.

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

It is only by labor that thought can be made healthy, and only by thought that labor can be happy; and the two cannot be separated with impunity.

Do not think of your faults, still less of other's faults; look for what is good and strong, and try to imitate it. Your faults will drop off, like dead leaves, when their time comes.

Natural abilities can almost compensate for the want of every kind of cultivation, but no cultivation of the mind can make up for the want of natural abilities.

Let every dawn be to you as the beginning of life and every setting sun be to you as its close.

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

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

Tell me what you like and I'll tell you what you are.

There is never vulgarity in a whole truth, however commonplace. It may be unimportant or painful. It cannot be vulgar. Vulgarity is only in concealment of truth, or in affectation.

Civilization is the making of civil persons.

The child who desires education will be bettered by it; the child who dislikes it disgraced.

The principle of all successful effort is to try to do not what is absolutely the best, but what is easily within our power, and suited for our temperament and condition.

The noble grotesque involves the true appreciation of beauty.

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.

How long most people would look at the best book before they would give the price of a large turbot for it?

Give a little love to a child, and you get a great deal back.

Flowers seem intended for the solace of ordinary humanity.

That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings.

A great thing can only be done by a great person; and they do it without effort.

Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance.

I believe the first test of a truly great man is in his humility.

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

Doing is the great thing, for if people resolutely do what is right, they come in time to like doing it.

One who does not know when to die, does not know how to live.

Sculpture is not the mere cutting of the form of anything in stone; it is the cutting of the effect of it. Very often the true form, in the marble, would not be in the least like itself.

It is impossible, as impossible as to raise the dead, to restore anything that has ever been great or beautiful in architecture. That which I have insisted upon as the life of the whole, that spirit which is given only by the hand and eye of the workman, can never be recalled.

When love and skill go together, expect a masterpiece.

Modern travelling is not travelling at all; it is merely being sent to a place, and very little different from becoming a parcel.

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

Let us reform our schools, and we shall find little reform needed in our prisons.

Beauty deprived of its proper foils and adjuncts ceases to be enjoyed as beauty, just as light deprived of all shadows ceases to be enjoyed as light.

The first duty of a state is to see that every child born therein shall be well housed, clothed, fed and educated till it attains years of discretion.

Books are divided into two classes, the books of the hour and the books of all time.

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

To banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality.

When we build let us think that we build forever.

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.

Men were not intended to work with the accuracy of tools, to be precise and perfect in all their actions.

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

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

Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together.

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

The path of a good woman is indeed strewn with flowers but they rise behind her steps not before them.

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.

To know anything well involves a profound sensation of ignorance.

Large fortunes are all founded either on the occupation of land, or lending or the taxation of labor.

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

Imaginary evils soon become real one by indulging our reflections on them.