J

John Ruskin

61 quotes

John Ruskin (1819–1900) was an English art critic, social thinker, and philanthropist whose ideas about art, architecture, and society profoundly influenced the Victorian and Edwardian eras. His passionate advocacy for beauty, craftsmanship, and social justice inspired movements ranging from the Arts and Crafts to early environmentalism.

“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

Age

All Quotes by John Ruskin

“All great and beautiful work has come of first gazing without shrinking into the darkness.”

— John Ruskin

Great

“No art can be noble which is incapable of expressing thought, and no art is capable of expressing thought which does not change.”

— John Ruskin

Art

“Modern education has devoted itself to the teaching of impudence, and then we complain that we can no longer control our mobs.”

— John Ruskin

Education

“Whether for life or death, do your own work well.”

— John Ruskin

Death

“Nearly all the powerful people of this age are unbelievers, the best of them in doubt and misery, the most in plodding hesitation, doing as well as they can, what practical work lies at hand.”

— John Ruskin

Age

“Better the rudest work that tells a story or records a fact, than the richest without meaning.”

— John Ruskin

Work

“The sky is the part of creation in which nature has done for the sake of pleasing man.”

— John Ruskin

Nature

“All great art is the work of the whole living creature, body and soul, and chiefly of the soul.”

— John Ruskin

Art

“Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together.”

— John Ruskin

Art

“Every great person is always being helped by everybody for their gift is to get good out of all things and all persons.”

— John Ruskin

Great

“Endurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty.”

— John Ruskin

Beauty

“Men were not intended to work with the accuracy of tools, to be precise and perfect in all their actions.”

— John Ruskin

Work

“The strength and power of a country depends absolutely on the quantity of good men and women in it.”

— John Ruskin

Men

“The work of science is to substitute facts for appearances, and demonstrations for impressions.”

— John Ruskin

Science

“You may either win your peace or buy it: win it, by resistance to evil buy it, by compromise with evil.”

— John Ruskin

Peace

“The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world... to see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion all in one.”

— John Ruskin

Poetry

“The first duty of government is to see that people have food, fuel, and clothes. The second, that they have means of moral and intellectual education.”

— John Ruskin

Education

“Music when healthy, is the teacher of perfect order, and when depraved, the teacher of perfect disorder.”

— John Ruskin

Music

“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

“The child who desires education will be bettered by it the child who dislikes it disgraced.”

— John Ruskin

Education