John Ruskin's Quotes

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

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

I believe the right question to ask, respecting all ornament, is simply this; was it done with enjoyment, was the carver happy while he was about it?

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.

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

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

No human being, however great, or powerful, was ever so free as a fish.

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

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

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

Taste is the only morality. Tell me what you like and I'll tell you what you are.

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

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

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

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

There are no such things as Flowers there are only gladdened Leaves.

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

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

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

All books are divisible into two classes, the books of the hour, and the books of all time.

An unimaginative person can neither be reverent or kind.

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.

Civilization is the making of civil persons.

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

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

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

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

It is his restraint that is honorable to a person, not their liberty.

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

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

Life being very short, and the quiet hours of it few, we ought to waste none of them in reading valueless books.

Men cannot not live by exchanging articles, but producing them. They live by work not trade.

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

No architecture is so haughty as that which is simple.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

The sky is the part of creation in which nature has done for the sake of pleasing man.

To give alms is nothing unless you give thought also.

Whether for life or death, do your own work well.

You might sooner get lightning out of incense smoke than true action or passion out of your modern English religion.

All violent feelings have the same effect. They produce in us a falseness in all our impressions of external things, which I would generally characterize as the pathetic fallacy.

No lying knight or lying priest ever prospered in any age, but especially not in the dark ones. Men prospered then only in following an openly declared purpose, and preaching candidly beloved and trusted creeds.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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 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.

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

The essence of lying is in deception, not in words.

Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort.

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

There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey.

In general, pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes.

There is no wealth but life.

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

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

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

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