John Ruskin Quotes

"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."

"When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece."

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

"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."

"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."

"There is no wealth but life."

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

"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."

"Art is not a study of positive reality, it is the seeking for ideal truth."

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

"A little thought and a little kindness are often worth more than a great deal of money."

"The entire object of true education, is to make people not merely do the right thing, but to enjoy right things; not merely industrious, but to love industry; not merely learned, but to love knowledge."

"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 readers is sure to skip them."

"The first test of a truly great man is his humility. By humility I don't mean doubt of his powers or hesitation in speaking his opinion, but merely an understanding of the relationship of what he can say and what he can do."

"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."

"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"

"Out of suffering comes the serious mind; out of salvation, the grateful heart; out of endurance, fortitude; out of deliverance faith."

"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."

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

"It is written on the arched sky; it looks out from every star. It is the poetry of Nature; it is that which uplifts the spirit within us."