Top 617 Quotes & Sayings by John Ruskin - Page 2

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.

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

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

He that would be angry and sin not, must not be angry with anything but sin.

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

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 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.

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

All that we call ideal in Greek or any other art, because to us it is false and visionary, was, to the makers of it, true and existent.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

All great art is the work of the whole living creature, body and soul, and chiefly of the soul.

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

Some slaves are scoured to their work by whips, others by their restlessness and ambition.

It is not how much one makes but to what purpose one spends.

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

An unimaginative person can neither be reverent or kind.

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

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

To give alms is nothing unless you give thought also.

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.

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.

Civilization is the making of civil persons.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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?

The first condition of education is being able to put someone to wholesome and meaningful work.

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

To know anything well involves a profound sensation of ignorance.

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?

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.

No architecture is so haughty as that which is simple.

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

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.

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

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

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

What we think or what we know or what we believe is in the end of little consequence. The only thing of consequence is what we do

The true end of education is not only to make the young learned, but to make them love learning; not only to make them industrious, but to make them love industry; not only to make them virtuous, but to make them love virtue; not only to make them just, but to make them hunger and thirst after justice.

When we build ... let it not be for present delights nor for present use alone. Let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for, and let us think ... that a time is to come when these stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say as they look upon the labor, and the wrought substance of them, See! This our fathers did for us!

Kind hearts are the garden, kind thoughts are the roots, kind words are the blossoms, kind deeds are the fruit.

Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives, the cumulative experience of many masters of craftsmanship. Quality also marks the search for an ideal after necessity has been satisfied and mere usefulness achieved.

Nature is painting for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty.

If the thing is impossible, you need not trouble yourselves about it; if possible, try for it.

It is far more difficult to be simple than to be complicated.

It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.