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John Ruskin

John Ruskin Quotes

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Famous John Ruskin Quotes

“... A power of obtaining veracity in the representation of material and tangible things, which, within certain limits and conditions, is unimpeachable, has now been placed in the hands of all men, almost without labour. (1853)”

MenHandsCertainConditionsMaterialsLimitsLabourRepresentationTangibleObtainingVeracity
Book:The stones of Venice (cont'd) Seven lamps of architecture. Lectures on architecture and painting, delivered at Edinburgh in Nov. 1853. An inquiry into some of the conditions at present affecting the study of architecture in our schools
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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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“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!”

ThinkingMenLooksUseHandsFatherFutureLaborStonesSacredDelightArchitectureSubstanceLook UpTouchedOur FatherDescendantsThank U
Book:Selections and Essays
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“We have seen when the earth had to be prepared for the habitation of man, a veil, as it were, of intermediate being was spread between him and its darkness, in which were joined in a subdued measure, the stability and insensibility of the earth, and the passion and perishing of mankind.”

MenEarthPassionDarknessMankindCreationEvolutionPreparedSpreadStabilityBe PreparedVeilsPerishingInsensibilityCreation Of Man
Book:Modern Painters: pt. 6. Of leaf beauty. pt. 7. Of Cloud beauty. pt. 8-9. Of ideas of relation
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“How false is the conception, how frantic the pursuit, of that treacherous phantom which men call Liberty: most treacherous, indeed, of all phantoms; for the feeblest ray of reason might surely show us, that not only its attainment, but its being, was impossible..... There is no such thing in the universe. There can never be. The stars have it not; the earth has it not; the sea has it not; and we men have the mockery and semblance of it only for our heaviest punishment.”

MenReasonShowsMightEarthPoliticalUniversePoliticsStarsLibertyImpossibleSeaPursuitPunishmentConceptionRaysAttainmentMockeryPhantomsTreacherousFranticSemblance
Book:The stones of Venice (cont'd) Seven lamps of architecture. Lectures on architecture and painting, delivered at Edinburgh in Nov. 1853. An inquiry into some of the conditions at present affecting the study of architecture in our schools
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“It is not, truly speaking, the labour that is divided; but the men: divided into mere segments of men - broken into small fragments and crumbs of life, so that all the little piece of intelligence that is left in a man is not enough to make a pin, or a nail, but exhausts itself in making the point of a pin or the head of a nail.”

MenLifeLittlesEnoughLeftPiecesHe ManBrokenMereLabourDividedNailsFragmentsPinsCrumbs
Book:The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from His Writings
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