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John Ruskin

John Ruskin Quotes

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Famous John Ruskin Quotes

“In our whole life melody the music is broken off here and there by rests, and we foolishly think we have come to the end of time. God sends a time of forced leisure, a time of sickness and disappointed plans, and makes a sudden pause in the hymns of our lives, and we lament that our voice must be silent and our part missing in the music which ever goes up to the ear of our Creator. Not without design does God write the music of our lives. Be it ours to learn the time and not be dismayed at the rests. If we look up, God will beat the time for us.”

IfsThinkingWritingLooksDoeEndsWholeLife IsVoiceChristianityOur LivesPlansMissingDesignBrokenMusic IsBeatsEarsSilentCreatorWhole LifeGods WillLook UpSicknessMelodyDisappointedLeisurePausesEnd TimesHere And ThereHymnsLamentDismayed
Author:John Ruskin
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“You cannot hammer a girl into anything. She grows as a flower does, she will wither without sun; she will decay in her sheath as a narcissus will if you do not give her air enough; she might fall and defile her head in dust if you leave her without help at some moments in her life; but you cannot fetter her; she must take her own fair form and way if she take any.”

IfsWayGivingDoeEnoughMomentsHelpingMightFormFallGirlGrowsGrowthSunAirFlowerFairsDustDecayHammersFettersNarcissus
Book:Essays and Letters Selected from the Writings of John Ruskin
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“If it is the love of that which your work represents--if, being a landscape painter, it is love of hills and trees that moves you--if, being a figure painter, it is love of human beauty, and human soul that moves you--if, being a flower or animal painter, it is love, and wonder, and delight in petal and in limb that move you, then the Spirit is upon you, and the earth is yours, and the fullness thereof.”

IfsHumansSoulEarthMovingSpiritAnimalWonderTreeFiguresPaintingFlowerDelightPainterHillsLandscapeLimbsFullnessHuman SoulPetalsFigure Painting
Book:Works
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“Expression, sentiment, truth to nature, are essential: but all those are not enough. I never care to look at a picture again, if it be ill composed; and if well composed I can hardly leave off looking at it.”

IfsWellsLooksI CanEnoughCareExpressionEssentialsIllSentiments
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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“It is only the basest writer who cannot speak of the sea without talking of "raging waves," "remorseless floods," "ravenous billows," etc.; and it is one of the signs of the highest power in a writer to check all such habits of thought, and to keep his eyes fixed firmly on the pure fact , out of which if any feeling comes to him or his reader, he knows it must be a true one.”

IfsKnowsFactsFeelingsEyeSpeakTalkingSeaReaderHabitPureHighestWaveRageChecksFixedHis EyesEtcFloodTrue OnesRemorseless
Book:The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from His Writings
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“What do you suppose makes all men look back to the time of childhood with so much regret (if their childhood has been, in any moderate degree, healthy or peaceful)? That rich charm, which the least possession had for us, was in consequence of the poorness of our treasures.”

IfsMenLooksHas BeensRichChildhoodRegretHealthyDegreesConsequencePossessionTreasurePeacefulCharmModerates
Book:Two paths. Lectures on art, delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary Term, 1870. Aratra Pentelici. Time and tide. Pre-Raphaelitism. The eagle's nest. King of the Golden River. The relation between Michael Angelo and Tintoret
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“There is but one question ultimately to be asked respecting every line you draw, Is it right or wrong? If right, it most assuredly is not a "free" line, but an intensely continent, restrained and considered line; and the action of the hand in laying it is just as decisive, and just as "free" as the hand of a first-rate surgeon in a critical incision.”

IfsFirstsHandsActionLinesDrawsRateCriticalContinentsSurgeons
Book:The Queen of the Air: Being a Study of the Greek Myths of Cloud and Storm
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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.”

IfsGivingWholeFoundListeningMassSaintHarmPerceiveShoreConfessionSailStrictBentCeremonyCablesSailorDecorationIncenseAbsolution
Book:Selections from the Writings of John Ruskin
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“It is, indeed, right that we should look for, and hasten, so far as in us lies, the coming of the day of God; but not that we should check any human effort by anticipations of its approach. We shall hasten it best by endeavoring to work out the tasks that are appointed for us here; and, therefore, reasoning as if the world were to continue under its existing dispensation, and the powers which have just been granted to us were to be continued through myriads of future ages.”

IfsWorldShouldHumansLooksAgeLyingEffortApproachTasksWork OutChecksGrantedReasoningAnticipationMillennium
Book:The Stones of Venice
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“The enormous influence of novelty--the way in which it quickens observations, sharpens sensations, and exalts sentiment--is not half enough taken note of by us, and is to me a very sorrowful matter. And yet, if we try to obtain perpetual change, change itself will become monotonous.”

IfsWayTryingMatterEnoughHalfTakenInfluenceNotesEnormousObservationSensationsSentimentsPerpetualNoveltyMonotonousSorrowful
Book:Modern Painters: pt. 4. Of many things
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“Courage, so far as it is a sign of race, is peculiarly the mark of a gentleman or a lady; but it becomes vulgar if rude or insensitive, while timidity is not vulgar, if it be a characteristic of race or fineness of make. A fawn is not vulgar in being timid, nor a crocodile "gentle" because courageous.”

IfsRaceCourageMarkGentleGentlemanCharacteristicsCourageousRudeVulgarTimidityInsensitiveCrocodilesFawns
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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“We are foolish, and without excuse foolish, in speaking of the superiority of one sex to the other, as if they could be compared in similar things! Each has what the other has not; each completes the other; they are in nothing alike and the happiness and perfection of both depend on each asking and receiving from the other what the other only can give.”

IfsGivingSexDependsPerfectionAskingExcuseEqualityFoolishReceivingSuperiority
Book:Sesame and Lilies
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“But if, indeed, there be a nobler life in us than in these strangely moving atoms; if, indeed, there is an eternal difference between the fire which inhabits them, and that which animates us,--it must be shown, by each of us in his appointed place, not merely in the patience, but in the activity of our hope, not merely by our desire, but our labor, for the time when the dust of the generations of men shall be confirmed for foundations of the gates of the city of God.”

IfsMenMovingDesireDifferencesCitiesFireGenerationsActivityEternalLaborFoundationDustGatesAtomsCity Of God
Book:The Ethics of the Dust: Ten Lectures to Little Housewives on the Elements of Crystallisation
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“God is a kind Father. He sets us all in the places where he wishes us to be employed. He chooses work for every creature which will be delightful to them if they do it simply and humbly. He gives us always strength enough and sense enough for what he wants us to do.”

IfsWantGivingKindEnoughFatherWishCreaturesDelightfulEmployedWant U
Book:The Ethics of the Dust: Ten Lectures to Little Housewives on the Elements of Crystallisation
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“If we pretend to have reached either perfection or satisfaction, we have degraded ourselves and our work. God's work only may express that, but ours may never have that sentence written upon it, Behold it was very good.”

IfsMayWrittenPerfectionVery GoodSatisfactionSentences
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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“You must get into the habit of looking intensely at words, and assuring yourself of their meaning, syllable by syllable-nay, letter by letter... you might read all the books in the British Museum (if you could live long enough) and remain an utterly "illiterate," undeducated person; but if you read ten pages of a good book, letter by letter, - that is to say, with real accuracy- you are for evermore in some measure an educated person.”

IfsPersonsLongBookRealEnoughMightHabitTenPagesLettersBritishEducatedMuseumsGood BookAccuracyIlliterateSyllablesEvermoreEducated PersonBritish Museum
Book:The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from His Writings
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“Another of the strange and evil tendencies of the present day is the decoration of the railroad station... There was never more flagrant nor impertinent folly than the smallest portion of ornament in anything connected with the railroads... Railroad architecture has or would have a dignity of its own if it were only left to its work.”

IfsEvilLeftStrangeDignityConnectedArchitectureTendenciesFollyStationsPortionsSmallestOrnamentsPresent DayRailroadsDecoration
Author:John Ruskin
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“No one can explain how the notes of a Mozart melody, or the folds of a piece of Titian's drapery, produce their essential effects. If you do not feel it, no one can by reasoning make you feel it.”

IfsFeelsPiecesEffectsProduceEssentialsNotesReasoningMelodyFolds
Book:Modern Painters ...: pt. 6. Of leaf beauty. pt. 7. Of cloud beauty. pt. 8-9. Of ideas of relation
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“The very cheapness of literature is making even wise people forget that if a book is worth reading, it is worth buying. No book is worth anything which is not worth much; nor is it serviceable, until it has been read, and re-read, and loved, and loved again; and marked, so that you can refer to the passages you want in it.”

PeopleIfsWantHas BeensBookReadingLiteratureForgetWiseBuyingPassagesWorth ReadingWise PeopleCheapness
Book:The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from His Writings
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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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“No changing of place at a hundred miles an hour will make us one whit stronger, or happier, or wiser. There was always more in the world than man could see, walked they ever so slowly; they will see it no better for going fast. The really precious things are thought and sight, not pace. It does a bullet no good to go fast; and a man, if he be truly a man, no harm to go slow; for his glory is not at all in going, but in being.”

IfsMenWorldDoeHoursGloryHundredSightStrongerHarmMilesPaceWiserBulletsPrecious Things
Author:John Ruskin
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“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.”

IfsWellsLittlesSometimesDoneEnoughMotivationalRunningLawLosesDealsCommonBusinessPayToo MuchRiskBalanceEconomicsAddIncapableLowestSomething BetterMotivational BusinessUnwiseLittle MoneyCommon Law
Author:John Ruskin
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“To be taught to read—what is the use of that, if you know not whether what you read is false or true? To be taught to write or to speak—but what is the use of speaking, if you have nothing to say? To be taught to think—nay, what is the use of being able to think, if you have nothing to think of? But to be taught to see is to gain word and thought at once, and both true.”

IfsThinkingKnowsWritingUseAbleSpeakTaughtGains
Book:Works: The laws of Fésole. A joy forever. Our fathers have told us. Inaugural address. Modern painters,v.1
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“Not without design does God write the music of our lives. Be it ours to learn the time, and not be discouraged at the rests. If we say sadly to ourselves, "There is no music in a rest," let us not forget " there is the making of music in it." The making of music is often a slow and painful process in this life. How patiently God works to teach us! How long He waits for us to learn the lesson!”

IfsWritingLongDoeLife IsWaitingProcessForgetTeachOur LivesDesignLessonsMusic IsPatiencePainfulThis LifeDiscouraged
Author:John Ruskin
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