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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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“And thus, in full, there are four classes: the men who feel nothing, and therefore see truly; the men who feel strongly, think weakly, and see untruly (second order of poets); the men who feel strongly, think strongly, and see truly (first order of poets); and the men who, strong as human creatures can be, are yet submitted to influences stronger than they, and see in a sort untruly, because what they see is inconceivably above them. This last is the usual condition of prophetic inspiration.”

ThinkingMenFeelsFirstsHumansInspirationLastsOrderStrongClassFourInfluenceConditionsHe ManPoetCreaturesStrongerUsualProphetic
Book:The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from His Writings
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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.”

ThinkingBeautifulCreaturesAdmirationBeautiful ThingsLiving Creatures
Book:The Two Paths: Being Lectures on Art, and Its Application to Decoration and Manufacture, Delivered in 1858-9
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“There is a certain period of the soul-culture when it begins to interfere with some of characters of typical beauty belonging to the bodily frame, the stirring of the intellect wearing down the flesh, and the moral enthusiasm burning its way out to heaven, through the emaciation of the earthen vessel; and there is, in this indication of subduing the mortal by the immortal part, an ideal glory of perhaps a purer and higher range than that of the more perfect material form. We conceive, I think, more nobly of the weak presence of Paul than of, the fair and ruddy countenance of David.”

ThinkingWaySoulCharacterFormCertainCultureHeavenPerfectBeautyMoralMaterialsHigherPeriodsGloryFairsIdealsWeakIntellectFleshEnthusiasmMortalsBurningRangeImmortalBelongingInterfereTypicalVesselIndicationStirringCountenance
Author:John Ruskin
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“Our respect for the dead, when they are just dead, is something wonderful, and the way we show it more wonderful still. We show it with black feathers and black horses; we show it with black dresses and black heraldries; we show it with costly obelisks and sculptures of sorrow, which spoil half of our beautiful cathedrals. We show it with frightful gratings and vaults, and lids of dismal stone, in the midst of the quiet grass; and last, and not least, we show it by permitting ourselves to tell any number of falsehoods we think amiable or credible in the epitaph.”

ThinkingWayStillsShowsLastsBeautifulDeathBlackNumbersHalfWonderfulSorrowQuietStonesHorseDressesGrassMidstFalsehoodSculptureFeathersSpoilCathedralsCredibleEpitaphAmiableVaults
Book:Works
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“It is not the weariness of mortality, but the strength of divinity, which we have to recognize in all mighty things; and that is just what we now never recognize, but think that we are to do great things by help of iron bars and perspiration. Alas! we shall do nothing that way but lose some pounds of our own weight.”

ThinkingWayHelpingLosesPowerWeightBarsGreat ThingsDivinityPoundsIronMortalityAlasWearinessPerspiration
Book:The true and the beautiful in nature, art, morals, and religion
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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.”

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Book:pt. VI: Of leaf beauty. pt. VII: Of cloud beauty. pts. VIII-IX: Of ideas of relation
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“Do not think of your faults, still less of other's faults; look for what is good and strong, and try to imitate it. Your faults will drop off, like dead leaves, when their time comes.”

ThinkingInspirationalTryingLooksStillsMotivationalTimeStrongForgivenessFaultsSelf Growth
Book:The Ethics of the Dust: Ten Lectures to Little Housewives on the Elements of Crystallisation
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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.”

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Book:Works: The laws of Fésole. A joy forever. Our fathers have told us. Inaugural address. Modern painters,v.1
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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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“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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