Top 450 John Ruskin Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort.”

— John Ruskin

2. “The best thing in life aren’t things.”

— John Ruskin

3. “Work first, and then rest.”

— John Ruskin

Featured in: Firsts Quotes

4. “When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.”

— John Ruskin

Featured in: Hard Work Quotes, Creativity Quotes

5. “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

6. “The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.”

— John Ruskin

7. “Living without an aim, is like sailing without a compass.”

— John Ruskin

8. “No individual rain drop ever considers itself responsible for the flood.”

— John Ruskin

Featured in: Rain Quotes

9. “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

10. “Skill is the unified force of experience, intellect and passion in their operation.”

— John Ruskin

Featured in: Quotes About Skills

11. “There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man’s lawful prey.”

— John Ruskin

12. “Kind hearts are the garden, kind thoughts are the roots, kind words are the blossoms, kind deeds are the fruit.”

— John Ruskin

13. “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

14. “A little thought and a little kindness are often worth more than a great deal of money.”

— John Ruskin

15. “It’s unwise to pay too much, but it’s worse to pay too little.”

— John Ruskin

16. “Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort. There must be the will to produce a superior thing.”

— John Ruskin

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

— John Ruskin

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

— John Ruskin

19. “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

20. “A book worth reading is worth buying.”

— John Ruskin

Featured in: Reading Quotes

21. “There is no wealth but life.”

— John Ruskin

22. “One can’t be angry when one looks at a penguin.”

— John Ruskin

23. “There is no music in a “rest” that I know of, but there’s the making of music in it. And people are always missing that part of the life melody.”

— John Ruskin

24. “Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become.”

— John Ruskin

25. “Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery.”

— John Ruskin

26. “The power of association is stronger than the power of beauty; therefore, the power of association is the power of beauty.”

— John Ruskin

27. “Labour without joy is base. Labour without sorrow is base. Sorrow without labour is base. Joy without labour is base.”

— John Ruskin

28. “In general, pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes.”

— John Ruskin

29. “When God shuts a door, He opens a window.”

— John Ruskin

30. “Every noble life leaves its fibre interwoven forever in the work of the world.”

— John Ruskin

31. “No nation can last which has made a mob of itself, however generous at heart.”

— John Ruskin

32. “You should read books like you take medicine, by advice, and not by advertisement.”

— John Ruskin

33. “Architecture is the art which so disposes and adorns the edifices raised by man, that the sight of them may contribute to his mental health, power, and pleasure.”

— John Ruskin

34. “Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think.”

— John Ruskin

35. “The common practice of keeping up appearances with society is a mere selfish struggle of the vain with the vain.”

— John Ruskin

36. “When a man is wrapped up in himself, he makes a pretty small package.”

— John Ruskin

37. “The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most.”

— John Ruskin

38. “Death is not a journey into an unknown land; it is a voyage home. We are going, not to a strange country, but to our fathers house.”

— John Ruskin

Featured in: Country Quotes

39. “Life without industry is guilt. Industry without Art is Brutality.”

— John Ruskin

40. “Mighty of heart, mighty of mind, magnanimous-to be this is indeed to be great in life.”

— John Ruskin

41. “It is far more difficult to be simple than to be complicated.”

— John Ruskin

42. “I believe the first test of a truly great man is in his humility.”

— John Ruskin

43. “To be able to ask a question clearly is two-thirds of the way to getting it answered.”

— John Ruskin

44. “I know well that happiness is in little things.”

— John Ruskin

45. “Blue color is everlastingly appointed by the deity to be a source of delight.”

— John Ruskin

46. “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

47. “Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you.”

— John Ruskin

Featured in: Hiking Quotes

48. “Genius is only a superior power of seeing.”

— John Ruskin

49. “All art is but dirtying the paper delicately.”

— John Ruskin

50. “Government and cooperation are in all things the laws of life. Anarchy and competition, the laws of death.”

— John Ruskin