Quotes by John Ruskin
The sky is the part of creation in which nature has done for the sake of pleasing man.
The child who desires education will be bettered by it; the child who dislikes it disgraced.
How long most people would look at the best book before they would give the price of a large turbot for it?
A thing is worth what it can do for you, not what you choose to pay for it.
It is far more difficult to be simple than to be complicated; far more difficult to sacrifice skill and easy execution in the proper place, than to expand both indiscriminately.
The principle of all successful effort is to try to do not what is absolutely the best, but what is easily within our power, and suited for our temperament and condition.
Of all the things that oppress me, this sense of the evil working of nature herself - my disgust at her barbarity - clumsiness - darkness - bitter mockery of herself - is the most desolating.
Endurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty.
In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: They must be fit for it. They must not do too much of it. And they must have a sense of success in it.
He is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the sum of his works, the greatest number of the greatest ideas.
Give little love to a child, and you get a great deal back.
A book worth reading is worth buying.
The distinguishing sign of slavery is to have a price, and to be bought for it.
Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.
Art is not a study of positive reality, it is the seeking for ideal truth.
Skill is the unified force of experience, intellect and passion in their operation.
The first test of a truly great man is his humility. By humility I don't mean doubt of his powers or hesitation in speaking his opinion, but merely an understanding of the relationship of what he can say and what he can do.
No art can be noble which is incapable of expressing thought, and no art is capable of expressing thought which does not change.
Every great person is always being helped by everybody; for their gift is to get good out of all things and all persons.
Nothing is ever done beautifully which is done in rivalship: or nobly, which is done in pride.
When we build, let us think that we build for ever.
They are good furniture pictures, unworthy of praise, and undeserving of blame.
Imaginary evils soon become real one by indulging our reflections on them.
Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance.
Modern education has devoted itself to the teaching of impudence, and then we complain that we can no longer control our mobs.
