John Ruskin quotes - page 3

Give a little to love a child, and you get a great deal back. (John Ruskin)
Let us reform our schools, and we shall find little reform needed in our prisons. View quote
John Ruskin
In painting as in eloquence, the greater your strength, the quieter your manner. View quote
John Ruskin
You should read books like you take medicine, by advice, and not by advertisement. View quote
John Ruskin
It is not possible to find a landscape, which if painted precisely as it is, will not make an impressive picture. No one knows, till he has tried, what strange beauty and subtle composition is prepared to his hand by Nature. View quote
John Ruskin
All you have really to do is to keep your back as straight as you can; and not think about what is upon it. The real and essential meaning of "virtue" is that straightness of back. View quote
John Ruskin
Of human work none but what is bad can be perfect in its own bad way. View quote
John Ruskin
Inequalities of wealth, unjustly established, have assuredly injured the nation in which they exist during their establishment; and, unjustly directed, they injure it yet more during their existence. But inequalities of wealth justly established, benefit the nation in the course of their establishment; and, nobly used, aid it yet more by their existence. View quote
John Ruskin
"And besides; the problem of land, at its worst, is a bye one; distribute the earth as you will, the principal question remains inexorable, -Who is to dig it? Which of us, in brief word, is to do the hard and dirty work for the rest, and for what pay? View quote
John Ruskin
All true opinions are living, and show their life by being capable of nourishment; therefore of change. But their change is that of a tree - not of a cloud. View quote
John Ruskin
In general, when the imagination is at all noble, it is irresistible, and therefore those who can at all resist it ought to resist it. Be a plain topographer if you possibly can; if Nature meant you to be anything else, she will force you to it; but never try to be a prophet. (John Ruskin)
Other men used their effete faiths and mean faculties with a high moral purpose. The Venetian gave the most earnest faith, and the lordliest faculty, to gild the shadows of an antechamber, or heighten the splendours of a holiday. View quote
John Ruskin
No small misery is caused by overworked and unhappy people, in the dark views which they necessarily take up themselves, and force upon others, of work itself. View quote
John Ruskin
The word "Blue" does not mean the sensation caused by a gentian on the human eye; but it means the power of producing that sensation: and this power is always there, in the thing, whether we are there to experience it or not, and would remain there though there were not a man left on the face of the earth. View quote
John Ruskin
I do not believe that ever any building was truly great, unless it had mighty masses, vigorous and deep, of shadow mingled with its surface. View quote
John Ruskin
A little group of wise hearts is better than a wilderness full of fools. View quote
John Ruskin
Engraving is, in brief terms, the Art of Scratch. View quote
John Ruskin
And with respect to the mode in which these general principles affect the secure possession of property, so far am I from invalidating such security, that the whole gist of these papers will be found ultimately to aim at an extension in its range; and whereas it has long been known and declared that the poor have no right to the property of the rich, I wish it also to be known and declared that the rich have no right to the property of the poor. View quote
John Ruskin
The greatest efforts of the race have always been traceable to the love of praise, as its greatest catastrophes to the love of pleasure. View quote
John Ruskin
How false is the conception, how frantic the pursuit, of that treacherous phantom which men call Liberty. View quote
John Ruskin
Work first and then rest. Work first, and then gaze, but do not use golden ploughshares, nor bind ledgers in enamel. (John Ruskin)
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. View quote
John Ruskin
Give an earnest-hearted, devoted girl any true work that will make her active in the dawn, and weary at night, with the consciousness that her fellow-creatures have indeed been the better for her day, and the powerless sorrow of her enthusiasm will transform itself into a majesty of radiant and beneficent peace. View quote
John Ruskin
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. View quote
John Ruskin
I am far more provoked at being thought foolish by foolish people, than pleased at being thought sensible by sensible people; and the average proportion of the numbers of each is not to my advantage. View quote
John Ruskin