John Ruskin, born on February 8, 1819, was a prominent English art critic, social thinker, and philanthropist. Known for his multifaceted contributions to the fields of art, architecture, and literature, Ruskin’s ideas and writings had a significant impact on Victorian society. He championed the principles of aesthetic beauty, craftsmanship, and the preservation of natural environments. Ruskin’s influential works, such as “Modern Painters” and “The Stones of Venice,” challenged conventional thinking and advocated for a deeper appreciation of art and the moral responsibilities of society. Additionally, Ruskin’s philanthropic efforts aimed to alleviate poverty and improve working conditions for the underprivileged. His diverse legacy as a critic, thinker, and reformer continues to inspire and shape cultural discourse to this day.
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
Books are divided into two classes, the books of the hour and the books of all time.
John Ruskin
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
Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless.
John Ruskin
The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love color the most.
John Ruskin
An unimaginative person can neither be reverent or kind.
John Ruskin
The true work of a critic is not to make his hearer believe him, but agree with him.
John Ruskin
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
All that is good in art is the expression of one soul talking to another, and is precious according to the greatness of the soul that utters it.
John Ruskin
Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together.
John Ruskin
Be humble as the blade of grass that is being trodden underneath the feet. The little ant tastes joyously the sweetness of honey and sugar. The mighty elephant trembles in pain under the agony of sharp goad.
John Ruskin
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
Life without industry is guilt, and industry without art is brutality.
John Ruskin
The weakest among us has a gift, however seemingly trivial, which is peculiar to him, and which worthily used, will be a gift to his race forever.
John Ruskin
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
Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces up, snow is exhilarating; there is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.
John Ruskin
Out of suffering comes the serious mind; out of salvation, the grateful heart; out of endurance, fortitude; out of deliverance faith.
John Ruskin
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
When love and skill work together, expect a materpiece.
John Ruskin
All art is but dirtying the paper delicately.
John Ruskin
The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and what it saw in a plain way. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion – all in one.
John Ruskin
You should read books like you take medicine, by advice, and not by advertisement.
John Ruskin
When a man is wrapped up in himself, he makes a pretty small package.
John Ruskin
In great countries, children are always trying to remain children, and the parents want to make them into adults. In vile countries, the children are always wanting to be adults and the parents want to keep them children.
John Ruskin
The common practice of keeping up appearances with society is a mere selfish struggle of the vain with the vain.
John Ruskin
I have seen, and heard, much of Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.
John Ruskin
Education is the leading of human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them.
John Ruskin
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
Modern education has devoted itself to the teaching of impudence, and then we complain that we can no longer control our mobs.
John Ruskin
The first condition of education is being able to put someone to wholesome and meaningful work.
John Ruskin
What right have you to take the word wealth, which originally meant ”well-being,” and degrade and narrow it by confining it to certain sorts of material objects measured by money?
John Ruskin
He who can take no great interest in what is small will take false interest in what is great.
John Ruskin
It is excellent discipline for an author to feel that he must say all that he has to say in the fewest possible words, or his readers is sure to skip them.
John Ruskin
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
Children see in their parents the past, their parents see in them the future; and if we find more love in the parents for their children than in children for their parents, this is sad but natural. Who does not entertain his hopes more than his recollections.
John Ruskin
He that has truth in his heart need never fear the want of persuasion on his tongue.
John Ruskin
The strength and power of a country depends absolutely on the quantity of good men and women in it.
John Ruskin
Success by the laws of competition signifies a victory over others by obtaining the direction and profits of their work. This is the real source of all great riches.
John Ruskin
Skill is the unified force of experience, intellect and passion in their operation.
John Ruskin
A book worth reading is worth buying.
John Ruskin
