John Ruskin famous quotes

Give a little love to a child, and you get a great deal back.
-- John Ruskin

#Love #Family #Children

What we think or what we know or what we believe is in the end of little consequence. The only thing of consequence is what we do
-- John Ruskin

#Motivational #Believe #Acceptance

There is material enough in a single flower for the ornament of a score of cathedrals.
-- John Ruskin

#Flower #Garden #Ornaments

When a man is wrapped up in himself, he makes a pretty small package.
-- John Ruskin

#Motivational #Witty #Attitude

A little thought and a little kindness are often worth more than a great deal of money.
-- John Ruskin

#Money #Kindness #Helping Others

When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.
-- John Ruskin

#Love #Inspirational #Motivational

The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.
-- John Ruskin

#Inspirational #Life #Motivational

Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort.
-- John Ruskin

#Inspirational #Motivational #Inspiring

Nature is painting for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty.
-- John Ruskin

#Science #Painting #Infinite

The path of a good woman is indeed strewn with flowers; but they rise behind her steps, not before them.
-- John Ruskin

#Flower #Good Woman #Path

To make your children capable of honesty is the beginning of education.
-- John Ruskin

#Trust #Children #Truth

There is a working class - strong and happy - among both rich and poor: there is an idle class - weak, wicked, and miserable - among both rich and poor.
-- John Ruskin

#Strong #Class #Wicked

Imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know in life.
-- John Ruskin

#Imperfection #Essentials

I will not kill or hurt any living creature needlessly, nor destroy any beautiful thing, but will strive to save and comfort all gentle life, and guard and perfect all natural beauty upon the earth.
-- John Ruskin

#Beautiful #Hurt #Perfect

There are no such things as Flowers there are only gladdened Leaves.
-- John Ruskin

#Flower #Literature

Man's only true happiness is to live in hope of something to be won by him.
-- John Ruskin

#Men #Anticipation #True Happiness

To use books rightly, is to go to them for help; to appeal to them when our own knowledge and power fail; to be led by them into wider sight and purer conception than our own, and to receive from them the united sentence of the judges and councils of all time, against our solitary and unstable opinions.
-- John Ruskin

#Book #Knowledge And Power #Sight

It takes a great deal of living to get a little deal of learning.
-- John Ruskin

#Littles #Deals

The root of almost every schism and heresy from which the Christian Church has suffered, has been because of the effort of men to earn, rather than receive their salvation; and the reason preaching is so commonly ineffective is, that it often calls on people to work for God rather than letting God work through them.
-- John Ruskin

#Letting Go #Christian #Men

It is impossible, as impossible as to raise the dead, to restore anything that has ever been great or beautiful in architecture. That which I have insisted upon as the life of the whole, that spirit which is given only by the hand and eye of the workman, can never be recalled.
-- John Ruskin

#Beautiful #Eye #Hands

A man is one whose body has been trained to be the ready servant of his mind; whose passions are trained to be the servants of his will; who enjoys the beautiful, loves truth, hates wrong, loves to do good, and respects others as himself.
-- John Ruskin

#Beautiful #Hate #Passion

Books are divided into two classes, the books of the hour and the books of all time.
-- John Ruskin

#Change #Time #Book

A great thing can only be done by a great person; and they do it without effort.
-- John Ruskin

#Greatness #Effort #Done

All great and beautiful work has come of first gazing without shrinking into the darkness.
-- John Ruskin

#Beautiful #Darkness #Gazing

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.
-- John Ruskin

#Long #Political #Wish

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.
-- John Ruskin

#Successful #Power #Effort

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.
-- John Ruskin

#Inspirational #Motivational #Positive

Man's only true happiness is to live in hope of something to be won by him. Reverence something to be worshipped by him, and love something to be cherished by him, forever.
-- John Ruskin

#Love #Men #Forever

No lying knight or lying priest ever prospered in any age, but especially not in the dark ones. Men prospered then only in following an openly declared purpose, and preaching candidly beloved and trusted creeds.
-- John Ruskin

#Love #Birthday #Lying

Come, ye cold winds, at January's call, On whistling wings, and with white flakes bestrew The earth.
-- John Ruskin

#Wind #Wings #White

You can only possess beauty through understanding it.
-- John Ruskin

#Understanding

The measure of any great civilization is its cities and a measure of a city's greatness is to be found in the quality of its public spaces, its parks and squares.
-- John Ruskin

#Greatness #Squares #Civilization

No architecture is so haughty as that which is simple.
-- John Ruskin

#Simple #Architecture

A thing is worth what it can do for you, not what you choose to pay for it.
-- John Ruskin

#Pay #You Choose

Every noble life leaves its fibre interwoven forever in the work of the world.
-- John Ruskin

#Forever #Noble #World

Men cannot not live by exchanging articles, but producing them. They live by work not trade.
-- John Ruskin

#Men #Trade #Live By

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.
-- John Ruskin

#Motivational #Running #Business

I believe that the first test of a great man is his humility. I don't mean by humility, doubt of his power. But really great men have a curious feeling that the greatness is not of them, but through them. And they see something divine in every other man and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful.
-- John Ruskin

#Believe #Mean #Humility

Let us reform our schools, and we shall find little reform needed in our prisons.
-- John Ruskin

#Education #School #Diversity

Skill is the unified force of experience, intellect and passion in their operation.
-- John Ruskin

#Passion #Skills #Experience

He that would be angry and sin not, must not be angry with anything but sin.
-- John Ruskin

#Anger #Would Be #Sin

The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most.
-- John Ruskin

#Art #Thoughtful #Mind

Let every dawn be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close.
-- John Ruskin

#Dawn #Sun #Beginning Of Life

Art is not a study of positive reality, it is the seeking for ideal truth.
-- John Ruskin

#Positive #Art #Reality

You may either win your peace or buy it: win it, by resistance to evil; buy it, by compromise with evil.
-- John Ruskin

#Peace #Winning #Evil

We require from buildings two kinds of goodness: first, the doing their practical duty well: then that they be graceful and pleasing in doing it.
-- John Ruskin

#Two #Design #Firsts

Endurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty.
-- John Ruskin

#Beauty #Patience #Perseverance

The only way to understand the difficult parts of the Bible is first to read and obey the easy ones.
-- John Ruskin

#Way #Firsts #Easy

All great art is the work of the whole living creature, body and soul, and chiefly of the soul.
-- John Ruskin

#Art #Soul #Literature

In general, pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes.
-- John Ruskin

#Mistake #Pride #Bottom

One of the prevailing sources of misery and crime is in the generally accepted assumption, that because things have been wrong a long time, it is impossible they will ever be right.
-- John Ruskin

#Change #Long #Misery

Music when healthy, is the teacher of perfect order, and when depraved, the teacher of perfect disorder.
-- John Ruskin

#Music #Teacher #Order

A book worth reading is worth buying.
-- John Ruskin

#Book #Reading #Buying

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.
-- John Ruskin

#Nature #Rain #Sunshine

There is in every animal's eye a dim image and gleam of humanity, a flash of strange light through which their life looks out and up to our great mystery of command over them, and claims the fellowship of the creature if not of the soul.
-- John Ruskin

#Eye #Animal #Light

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.
-- John Ruskin

#Relationship #Humility #Mean

The essence of lying is in deception, not in words.
-- John Ruskin

#Lying #Essence #Political

I believe the first test of a truly great man is in his humility.
-- John Ruskin

#Motivational #Believe #Humility

To be able to ask a question clearly is two-thirds of the way to getting it answered.
-- John Ruskin

#Clever #Two #Able

On the whole, it is patience which makes the final difference between those who succeed or fail in all things. All the greatest people have it in an infinite degree, and among the less, the patient weak ones always conquer the impatient strong.
-- John Ruskin

#Patience #Strong #Differences

It is better to lose your pride with someone you love rather than to lose that someone you love with your useless pride.
-- John Ruskin

#Pride #Someone You Love #Useless

No person who is not a great sculptor or painter can be an architect. If he is not a sculptor or painter, he can only be a builder.
-- John Ruskin

#Art #Architecture #Painter

A man is born an artist as a hippopotamus is born a hippopotamus; and you can no more make yourself one than you can make yourself a giraffe.
-- John Ruskin

#Art #Men #Giraffe

You will find that the mere resolve not to be useless, and the honest desire to help other people, will, in the quickest and delicatest ways, improve yourself.
-- John Ruskin

#Knowledge #Helping Others #People

People are eternally divided into two classes, the believer, builder, and praiser...and the unbeliever, destroyer and critic.
-- John Ruskin

#Class #Two #People

Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts the book of their deeds, the book of their words, and the book of their art. Not one of these books can be understood unless we read the two others; but of the three, the only quite trustworthy one is the last. The acts of a nation may be triumphant by its good fortune; and its words mighty by the genius of a few of its children: but its art, only by the general gifts and common sympathies of the race.
-- John Ruskin

#Art #Children #Book

It’s unwise to pay too much, but it’s worse to pay too little.
-- John Ruskin

#Littles #Pay #Too Much

There is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.
-- John Ruskin

#Change #Weather #Different

Let every dawn of the morning be to you as the beginning of life. And let every setting of the sun be to you as its close. Then let everyone of these short lives leave its sure record of some kindly thing done for others; some good strength of knowledge gained for yourself.
-- John Ruskin

#Morning #Short Life #Dawn

The Bible is the one Book to which any thoughtful man may go with any honest question of life or destiny and find the answer of God by honest searching.
-- John Ruskin

#Bible #Christian #Book

I fear uniformity. You cannot manufacture great men any more than you can manufacture gold.
-- John Ruskin

#Greatness #Men #Gold

God gives us always strength enough, and sense enough, for everything He wants us to do.
-- John Ruskin

#Religious #Giving #Want

When we build, let us think that we build forever.
-- John Ruskin

#Bad Ass #Thinking #Forever

He who can take no interest in what is small will take false interest in what is great.
-- John Ruskin

#Trust #Interest

Better the rudest work that tells a story or records a fact, than the richest without meaning.
-- John Ruskin

#Rude #Stories #Records

The strength and power of a country depends absolutely on the quantity of good men and women in it.
-- John Ruskin

#Strength #Country

Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance.
-- John Ruskin

#Love #Beauty #Beautiful

Flowers seem intended for the solace of ordinary humanity.
-- John Ruskin

#Flower #Humanity #Ordinary

No one can ask honestly or hopefully to be delivered from temptation unless he has himself honestly and firmly determined to do the best he can to keep out of it.
-- John Ruskin

#Temptation #Determined #Honestly

The best work never was and never will be done for money.
-- John Ruskin

#Humor #Done #Best Work

The sky is the part of creation in which nature has done for the sake of pleasing man.
-- John Ruskin

#Nature #Men #Sky

When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for our use alone. Let it be such work as our descendants will look upon with praise and thanksgiving in their hearts.
-- John Ruskin

#Heart #Thinking #History

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.
-- John Ruskin

#Inspirational #Motivational #Forgiveness

Architecture is the work of nations
-- John Ruskin

#Architecture

Living without an aim, is like sailing without a compass.
-- John Ruskin

#Sailing #Compass #Aim

He is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the sum of his works, the greatest number of the greatest ideas.
-- John Ruskin

#Art #Ideas #Numbers

I believe the right question to ask, respecting all ornament, is simply this; was it done with enjoyment, was the carver happy while he was about it?
-- John Ruskin

#Believe #Ornaments #Done

All art is but dirtying the paper delicately.
-- John Ruskin

#Art #Drawing #Paper

Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts - the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art.
-- John Ruskin

#Art #Book #Writing

There is no wealth but life. Life, including all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest numbers of noble and happy human beings; that man is richest, who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal, and by means of his possessions, over the lives of others.
-- John Ruskin

#Country #Mean #Men

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.
-- John Ruskin

#Writing #Thinking #Taught

Blue color is everlastingly appointed by the deity to be a source of delight.
-- John Ruskin

#Blue #Color #Delight

Of all God's gifts to the sighted man, color is holiest, the most divine, the most solemn.
-- John Ruskin

#God #Men #Color

Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery.
-- John Ruskin

#Climbing #Mountain #Literature

No person who is well bred, kind and modest is ever offensively plain; all real deformity means want for manners or of heart.
-- John Ruskin

#Real #Mean #Heart

No human being, however great, or powerful, was ever so free as a fish.
-- John Ruskin

#Powerful #Rivers #Lakes

It is written on the arched sky; it looks out from every star. It is the poetry of Nature; it is that which uplifts the spirit within us.
-- John Ruskin

#Uplifting #Stars #Sky

No good work whatever can be perfect, and the demand for perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art.
-- John Ruskin

#Art #Work #Perfection

He who has truth at his heart need never fear the want of persuasion on his tongue.
-- John Ruskin

#Heart #Needs #Want

In every person who comes near you look for what is good and strong.
-- John Ruskin

#Appreciation #Strong #Looks