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John Ruskin

John Ruskin Quotes

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Famous John Ruskin Quotes

“We need examples of people who, leaving Heaven to decide whether they are to rise in the world, decide for themselves that they will be happy in it, and have resolved to seek not greater wealth, but simpler pleasure; not higher fortune, but deeper felicity; making the first of possessions, self-possession; and honouring themselves in the harmless pride and calm pursuits of peace.”

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Book:The Two Paths
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“The more readily we admit the possibility of our own cherished convictions being mixed with error, the more vital and helpful whatever is right in them will become; and no error is so conclusively fatal as the idea that God will not allow us to err, though He has allowed all other men to do so.”

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Book:The Ethics of the Dust: Ten Lectures to Little Housewives on the Elements of Crystallisation
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“Such help as we can give to each other in this world is a debt to each other; and the man who perceives a superiority or a capacity in a subordinate, and neither confesses nor assists it, is not merely the withholder of kindness, but the committer of injury.”

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Book:The Two Paths: Being Lectures on Art, and Its Application to Decoration and Manufacture, Delivered in 1858-9
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“I know few Christians so convinced of the splendor of the rooms in their Father's house, as to be happier when their friends are called to those mansions... Nor has the Church's ardent "desire to depart, and be with Christ," ever cured it of the singular habit of putting on mourning for every person summoned to such departure.”

KnowsPersonsChristianDesireFatherHouseChristChurchRoomsAtheismHabitPositive AtheismConvincedMourningDepartureSplendorMansionsArdent
Book:The crown of wild olive: Munera pulveris. Pre-Raphaelitism. Aratra Pentelici, etc
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“Disorder in a drawing-room is vulgar; in an antiquary's study, not; the black battle-stain on a soldier's face is not vulgar, but the dirty face of a housemaid is.”

FacesBlackRoomsStudyBattleSoldierDrawingDirtyDisorderVulgarStainsHousemaids
Book:Modern Painters: pt. 6. Of leaf beauty. pt. 7. Of cloud beauty. pt. 8-9. Of ideas of relation: Of invention formal. Of invention spiritual
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“Imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know of life. It is the sign of life in a mortal body, that is to say, of a state of progress and change. Nothing that lives is, or can be rigidly perfect; part of it is decaying, part nascent.”

KnowsStatesBodyLife IsPerfectProgressEssentialsMortalsImperfectionSigns Of LifeProgress And Change
Book:On the nature of Gothic architecture: and herein of the true functions of the workman in art. Being the greater part of the 6th chapter of the 2nd vol. of 'Stones of Venice'. [48 p.].
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“To cultivate sympathy you must be among living creatures, and thinking about them; and to cultivate admiration, you must be among beautiful things and looking at them.”

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Book:The Two Paths: Being Lectures on Art, and Its Application to Decoration and Manufacture, Delivered in 1858-9
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“We must note carefully what distinction there is between a healthy and a diseased love of change; for as it was in healthy love of change that the Gothic architecture rose, it was partly in consequence of diseased love of change that it was destroyed.”

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Book:On the Nature of Gothic Architecture: And Herein of the True Functions of the Workman in Art ...
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“I would have, then, our ordinary dwelling-houses built to last, and built to be lovely; as rich and full of pleasantness as may be within and without: . . . with such differences as might suit and express each man's character and occupation, and partly his history.”

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Book:The True and the Beautiful in Nature, Art, Morals and Religion: Selected from the Works of John Ruskin...
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“It is not so much in buying pictures as in being pictures, that you can encourage a noble school. The best patronage of art is not that which seeks for the pleasures of sentiment in a vague ideality, nor for beauty of form in a marble image, but that which educates your children into living heroes, and binds down the flights and the fondnesses of the heart into practical duty and faithful devotion.”

HeartChildrenArtSchoolFormPleasureDutyHeroArt IsOur ChildrenNoblePracticalsDevotionFlightFaithfulYour ChildrenBuyingSentimentsEducateVagueMarbleFondnessPatronage
Book:Precious Thoughts: Moral and Religious. Gathered from the Works of John Ruskin, A. M.
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“Remember always, in painting as in eloquence, the greater your strength, the quieter will be your manner, and the fewer your words; and in painting, as in all the arts and acts of life the secret of high success will be found, not in a fretful and various excellence, but in a quiet singleness of justly chosen aim.”

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Book:Precious Thoughts, Moral and Religious
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“The names of great painters are like passing-bells: in the name of Velasquez you hear sounded the fall of Spain; .in the name of Titian, that of Venice; in the name of Leonardo, that of Milan; in the name of Raphael, that of Rome. And there is profound justice in this, for in proportion to the nobleness of the power is the guilt of its use for purposes vain or vile; and hitherto the greater the art, the more surely has it been used, and used solely, for the decoration of pride or the provoking of sensuality.”

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Author:John Ruskin
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“Candlesticks and incense not being portable into the maintop, the sailor perceives these decorations to be, on the whole, inessential to a maintop mass. Sails must be set and cables bent, be it never so strict a saint's day; and it is found that no harm comes of it. Absolution on a lee-shore must be had of the breakers, it appears, if at all; and they give plenary and brief without listening to confession.”

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Book:Selections from the Writings of John Ruskin
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“Men say their pinnacles point to heaven. Why, so does every tree that buds, and every bird that rises as it sings. Men say their aisles are good for worship. Why, so is every mountain glen and rough sea-shore. But this they have of distinct and indisputable glory,--that their mighty walls were never raised, and never shall be, but by men who love and aid each other in their weakness.”

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Book:The Two Paths: Being Lectures on Art, and Its Application to Decoration and Manufacture, Delivered in 1858-9
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“Our large trading cities bear to me very nearly the aspect of monastic establishments in which the roar of the mill-wheel and the crane takes the place of other devotional music, and in which the worship of Mammon and Moloch is conducted with a tender reverence and an exact propriety; the merchant rising to his Mammon matins, with the self-denial of an anchorite, and expiating the frivolities into which he maybe beguiled in the course of the day by late attendance at Mammon vespers.”

SelfCoursesCitiesBearsLateWorshipAspectDenialRisingWheelsEstablishmentReverenceTradingMerchantsMillsProprietyDevotionalSelf-denialAttendanceFrivolityCranes
Book:The Political Economy of Art: Being the Substance (with Additions) of Two Lectures Delivered at Manchester, July 10th and 13th, 1857
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“Color is, in brief terms, the type of love. Hence it is especially connected with the blossoming of the earth; and again, with its fruits; also, with the spring and fall of the leaf, and with the morning and evening of the day, in order to show the waiting of love about the birth and death of man.”

MenShowsEarthOrderFallWaitingTermMorningColorTypeBirthSpringFruitConnectedEveningLeafsBirth And DeathBlossomingTypes Of Love
Book:pt. VI: Of leaf beauty. pt. VII: Of cloud beauty. pts. VIII-IX: Of ideas of relation
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“All are to be men of genius in their degree,--rivulets or rivers, it does not matter, so that the souls be clear and pure; not dead walls encompassing dead heaps of things, known and numbered, but running waters in the sweet wilderness of things unnumbered and unknown, conscious only of the living banks, on which they partly refresh and partly reflect the flowers, and so pass on.”

MenDoeSoulMatterRunningWaterKnownClearSweetFlowerWallGeniusPureDegreesConsciousRiversWildernessBe A ManRunning Water
Book:The Stones of Venice...
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“The whole difference between a man of genius and other men, it has been said a thousand times, and most truly, is that the first remains in great part a child, seeing with the large eyes of children, in perpetual wonder, not conscious of much knowledge--conscious, rather of infinite ignorance, and yet infinite power; a fountain of eternal admiration, delight, and creative force within him meeting the ocean of visible and governable things around him.”

MenFirstsChildrenHas BeensSaidWholeEyeForceDifferencesWonderCreativeSeeingIgnoranceGeniusThousandOceanEternalConsciousInfiniteRemainsMeetingsDelightVisibleAdmirationPerpetualFountainInfinite PowerEyes Of A Child
Book:The Stones of Venice
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