John Ruskin was a 19th-century English art critic, social thinker, and philanthropist. Known for his work „Modern Painters,“ Ruskin championed the beauty of nature and Gothic architecture. He also advocated for social reform, emphasizing the importance of craftsmanship and the welfare of workers. Ruskin’s ideas significantly influenced art, architecture, and social movements.
111 quotes
It is his restraint that is honorable to a person, not their liberty.
John RuskinDo 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.
John RuskinModern education has devoted itself to the teaching of impudence, and then we complain that we can no longer control our mobs.
John RuskinThere 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.
John RuskinIt 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.
John RuskinBeauty 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.
John RuskinNothing can be beautiful which is not true.
John RuskinIt seems a fantastic paradox, but it is nevertheless a most important truth, that no architecture can be truly noble which is not imperfect.
John RuskinEducation is the leading of human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them.
John RuskinThe 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.
John RuskinAn 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.
John RuskinNot 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.
John RuskinWalk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you.
John RuskinPunishment is the last and the least effective instrument in the hands of the legislator for the prevention of crime.
John RuskinNatural 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.
John RuskinHe is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the sum of his works, the greatest number of the greatest ideas.
John RuskinNo 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.
John RuskinThe child who desires education will be bettered by it; the child who dislikes it disgraced.
John RuskinNo art can be noble which is incapable of expressing thought, and no art is capable of expressing thought which does not change.
John RuskinHow long most people would look at the best book before they would give the price of a large turbot for it?
John RuskinA book worth reading is worth buying.
John RuskinOne who does not know when to die, does not know how to live.
John RuskinSome slaves are scoured to their work by whips, others by their restlessness and ambition.
John RuskinAll 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.
John RuskinThe strength and power of a country depends absolutely on the quantity of good men and women in it.
John RuskinNo good is ever done to society by the pictorial representation of its diseases.
John RuskinWhen we build, let us think that we build for ever.
John RuskinThe distinguishing sign of slavery is to have a price, and to be bought for it.
John RuskinA thing is worth what it can do for you, not what you choose to pay for it.
John RuskinLarge fortunes are all founded either on the occupation of land, or lending or the taxation of labor.
John RuskinThe first condition of education is being able to put someone to wholesome and meaningful work.
John RuskinThere are no such things as Flowers there are only gladdened Leaves.
John RuskinWhat 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?
John RuskinBetter the rudest work that tells a story or records a fact, than the richest without meaning.
John RuskinThe higher a man stands, the more the word vulgar becomes unintelligible to him.
John RuskinYou might sooner get lightning out of incense smoke than true action or passion out of your modern English religion.
John RuskinIt is in this power of saying everything, and yet saying nothing too plainly, that the perfection of art consists.
John RuskinTaste is the only morality. Tell me what you like and I’ll tell you what you are.
John RuskinImaginary evils soon become real one by indulging our reflections on them.
John RuskinAn unimaginative person can neither be reverent or kind.
John RuskinNothing is ever done beautifully which is done in rivalship: or nobly, which is done in pride.
John RuskinIt is not how much one makes but to what purpose one spends.
John RuskinWhether for life or death, do your own work well.
John RuskinNo person who is well bred, kind and modest is ever offensively plain; all real deformity means want for manners or of heart.
John RuskinNearly 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 RuskinHe that would be angry and sin not, must not be angry with anything but sin.
John RuskinMen 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 RuskinA great thing can only be done by a great person; and they do it without effort.
John RuskinEndurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty.
John RuskinNo human being, however great, or powerful, was ever so free as a fish.
John RuskinThere 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.
John RuskinThe 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.
John RuskinIn general, pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes.
John RuskinThe essence of lying is in deception, not in words.
John RuskinThe highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.
John RuskinThere is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.
John RuskinQuality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort.
John RuskinSunshine 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.
John RuskinThe 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.
John RuskinWhen love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.
John Ruskin