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John Ruskin

John Ruskin Quotes

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Famous John Ruskin Quotes

“There is in every animal's eye a dim image and gleam of humanity, a flash of strange light through which their life looks out and up to our great mystery of command over them, and claims the fellowship of the creature if not of the soul.”

IfsLooksSoulLightEyeHumanityAnimalMysteryStrangeCreaturesClaimsCommandFlashFellowshipGleam
Book:Notes on Some of the Principal Pictures Exhibited in the Rooms of the Royal Academy, the Old and New Societies of Painters in Water Colours, the Society of British Artists and the French Exhibition
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“God has lent us the earth for our life; it is a great entail. It belongs as much to those who are to come after us, and whose names are already written in the book of creation, as to us; and we have no right, by anything that we do or neglect, to involve them in unnecessary penalties, or deprive them of benefits which it was in our power to bequeath.”

BookEarthNamesOur LivesWrittenCreationBenefitsNeglectUnnecessaryPenalties
Book:The Religion of Ruskin: The Life and Works of John Ruskin; a Biographical and Anthological Study
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“Depend upon it, the first universal characteristic of all great art is Tenderness, as the second is Truth. I find this more and more every day: an infinitude of tenderness is the chief gift and inheritance of all the truly great men. It is sure to involve a relative intensity of disdain towards base things, and an appearance of sternness and arrogance in the eyes of all hard, stupid, and vulgar people”

PeopleMenFirstsArtHardEyeStupidDependsArt IsUniversalAppearanceChiefsCharacteristicsArroganceGreat MenIntensityRelativeTendernessVulgarGreat ArtInheritanceDisdain
Book:The Two Paths: Being Lectures on Art, and Its Application to Decoration and Manufacture, Delivered in 1858-9
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“If men lived like men indeed, their houses would be temples -- temples which we should hardly dare to injure, and in which it would make us holy to be permitted to live; and there must be a strange dissolution of natural affection, a strange unthankfulness for all that homes have given and parents taught, a strange consciousness that we have been unfaithful to our fathers honor, or that our own lives are not such as would make our dwellings sacred to our children, when each man would fain build to himself, and build for the little revolution of his own life only.”

IfsMenShouldChildrenLittlesHas BeensHomeWould BeFatherHouseGivenParentNaturalConsciousnessTaughtStrangeRevolutionHonorHolyOur ChildrenSacredAffectionDareTemplesRebelliousOur FatherDwellingDissolutionUnfaithful
Book:The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from His Writings
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“Along the iron veins that traverse the frame of our country, beat and flow the fiery pulses of its exertion, hotter and faster every hour. All vitality is concentrated through those throbbing arteries into the central cities; the country is passed over like a green sea by narrow bridges, and we are thrown back in continually closer crowds on the city gates.”

CountryHoursCitiesSeaBeatsFlowGreenCrowdsOur CountryFasterBridgesThrownIronGatesVeinsVitalityPulseFieryExertionArteriesHotterTraverse
Book:The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from His Writings
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“All real and wholesome enjoyments possible to people have been just as possible to them since first they were made of the earth as they are now; and they are possible to them chiefly in peace. To watch the corn grow, and the blossoms set; to draw hard breath over plowshare or spade; to read, to think, to love, to hope: these are the things that make people happy.”

PeopleThinkingFirstsHas BeensMadeRealHardEarthHappinessGrowsWatchesDrawsBreathsEnjoymentCornMaking People HappySpades
Author:John Ruskin
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“There is no climate, no place, and scarcely an hour, in which nature does not exhibit color which no mortal effort can imitate or approach. For all our artificial pigments are, even when seen under the same circumstances, dead and lightless beside her living color; nature exhibits her hues under an intensity of sunlight which trebles their brilliancy.”

DoeNatureHoursEffortColorCircumstancesApproachClimateMortalsIntensityArtificialSunlightExhibitsHuePigmentLiving Color
Book:Modern Painters ...: pt. 1-2. Of general principles, and Of truth. 5th ed
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“[For men] to feel their souls withering within them, unthanked, to find their whole being sunk into an unrecognized abyss, to be counted off into a heap of mechanism numbered with its wheels, and weighed with its hammer strokes - this, nature bade not, - this, God blesses not, - this, humanity for no long time is able to endure.”

MenFeelsLongSoulWholeAblePoliticalHumanityLong TimeEndureWheelsBlessMechanismStrokesAbyssHammersGod BlessWithering
Book:Selections From the Works of John Ruskin
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“Modern science gives lectures on botany, to show there is no such thing as a flower; on humanity, to show there is no such thing as a man; and on theology, to show there is no such thing as a God. No such thing as a man, but only a mechanism, No such thing as a God, but only a series of forces.”

MenGivingShowsHumanityForceModernFlowerSeriesTheologyMechanismScience And ReligionLecturesModern ScienceBotany
Book:Selections and Essays
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