John Ruskin Quotes
Better a child should be ignorant of a thousand truths than have consecrated in its heart a single lie.
In order that a man may be happy, it is necessary that he should not only be capable of his work, but a good judge of his work.
See that your children be taught, not only the labors of the earth, but the loveliness of it.
Of all the pulpits from which human voice is ever sent forth, there is none from which it reaches so far as from the grave.
That which seems to be wealth may in verity be only the gilded index of far reaching ruin
Milton saw not, and Beethoven heard not, but the sense of beauty was upon them, and they fain must speak.
The truth of Nature is a part of the truth of God; to him who does not search it out, darkness; to him who does, infinity.
It is among children only, and as children only, that you will find medicine for your healing and true wisdom for your teaching.
Curiosity is a gift, a capacity of pleasure in knowing, which if you destroy, you make yourself cold and dull.
No one can do me any good by loving me; I have more love than I need or could do any good with; but people do me good by making me love them - which isn't easy.
Nothing can be true which is either complete or vacant; every touch is false which does not suggest more than it represents, and every space is false which represents nothing.
It is a good and safe rule to sojourn in every place as if you meant to spend your life there, never omitting an opportunity of doing a kindness, or speaking a true word, or making a friend.
We may, without offending any laws of good taste, require of an architect, as we do of a novelist, that he should be not only correct, but entertaining.
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.
There is nothing so great or so goodly in creation, but that it is a mean symbol of the gospel of Christ, and of the things He has prepared for them that love Him.
Wherever men are noble, they love bright colour; and wherever they can live healthily, bright colour is given them—in sky, sea, flowers, and living creatures.
How long most people would look at the best book before they would give the price of a large turbot for it?
The infinity of God is not mysterious, it is only unfathomable; not concealed, but incomprehensible; it is a clear infinity, the darkness of the pure unsearchable sea.
The proof of a thing's being right is that it has power over the heart; that it excites us, wins us, or helps us.
In old times men used their powers of painting to show the objects of faith, in later times they use the objects of faith to show their powers of painting.
Every good piece of art... involves first essentially the evidence of human skill, and the formation of an actually beautiful thing by it.
I used to lie down on the grass and draw the blades as they grew - until every square foot of meadow, or mossy bank, became a possession to me.
In the range of inorganic nature. I doubt if any object can be found more perfectly beautiful than a fresh, deep snowdrift, seen under warm light.
All really great pictures exhibit the general habits of nature, manifested in some peculiar, rare, and beautiful way.
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.
As in the instances of alchemy, astrology, witchcraft, and other such popular creeds, political economy, has a plausible idea at the root of it.
There is no music in a “rest” that I know of, but there's the making of music in it. And people are always missing that part of the life melody.
The virtue of the imagination is its reaching, by intuition and intensity, a more essential truth than is seen at the surface of things.
Many thoughts are so dependent upon the language in which they are clothed that they would lose half their beauty if otherwise expressed.
The history of humanity is not the history of its wars, but the history of its households.
... the weakest among us has a gift, however seemingly trivial, which is peculiar to him, and which, worthily used, will be a gift also to his race forever.
If you do not wish for His kingdom do not pray for it. But if you do you must do more than pray for it, you must work for it.
Value is the life-giving power of anything; cost, the quantity of labour required to produce it; its price, the quantity of labourwhich its possessor will take in exchange for it.
The power of association is stronger than the power of beauty; therefore, the power of association is the power of beauty.
That admiration of the 'neat but not gaudy,' which is commonly reported to have influenced the devil when he painted his tail pea green.
I've seen the Rhine with younger wave, O'er every obstacle to rave. I see the Rhine in his native wild Is still a mighty mountain child.
