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John Ruskin

John Ruskin Quotes

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Famous John Ruskin Quotes

“Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts the book of their deeds, the book of their words, and the book of their art. Not one of these books can be understood unless we read the two others; but of the three, the only quite trustworthy one is the last. The acts of a nation may be triumphant by its good fortune; and its words mighty by the genius of a few of its children: but its art, only by the general gifts and common sympathies of the race.”

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Author:John Ruskin
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“When men are rightly occupied, their amusement grows out of their work, as the colour-petals out of a fruitful flower; when they are faithfully helpful and compassionate, all their emotions become steady, deep, perpetual, and vivifying to the soul as the natural pulse to the body. But now, having no true business, we pour our whole masculine energy into the false business of money-making; and having no true emotion, we must have false emotions dressed up for us to play with, not innocently, as children with dolls, but guiltily and darkly.”

MenChildrenSoulPlayWholeBodyEnergyGrowsNaturalEmotionFlowerMaking MoneyColourHelpfulCompassionateSteadyPerpetualMasculineAmusementPulseDollsPetalsDressed UpTrue Emotions
Book:The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from His Writings
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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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“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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“I do not mean to call an elephant a vulgar animal, but if you think about him carefully, you will find that his nonvulgarity consists in such gentleness as is possible to elephantine nature-not in his insensitive hide, nor in his clumsy foot, but in the way he will lift his foot if a child lies in his way; and in his sensitive trunk, and still more sensitive mind, and capability of pique on points of honor.”

IfsThinkingWayMindMeanChildrenStillsLyingAnimalFeetHonorLiftsSensitiveCapabilityElephantsVulgarGentlenessTrunksClumsyInsensitivePique
Book:pt. VI: Of leaf beauty. pt. VII: Of cloud beauty. pts. VIII-IX: Of ideas of relation
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“To make your children capable of honesty is the beginning of education.”

ChildrenTruthHonestHonestyTrustCapableEthicsBeing HonestYour ChildrenCapabilityHonest TruthTruth And HonestyHonesty IntegrityTruth HonestyHonesty And IntegrityHonest And IntegrityHonesty Is The Best PolicyHonest Person
Book:Time and Tide, by Weare and Tyne. Twenty-five letters to a Working Man of Sunderland (Thomas Dixon) on the laws of work ... Second edition
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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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