Top 450 John Ruskin Quotes (2024 Update)
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151. “Do not think it wasted time to submit yourself to any influence that will bring upon you any noble feeling.”

— John Ruskin

152. “Without the perfect sympathy with the animals around them, no gentleman’s education, no Christian education, could be of any possible use.”

— John Ruskin

153. “The anger of a person who is strong, can always bide its time.”

— John Ruskin

154. “There is no wealth but life. Life, including all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration.”

— John Ruskin

155. “They are good furniture pictures, unworthy of praise, and undeserving of blame.”

— John Ruskin

156. “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

157. “You can only possess beauty through understanding it.”

— John Ruskin

158. “It is advisable that a person know at least three things, where they are, where they are going, and what they had best do under the circumstances.”

— John Ruskin

159. “The more I think of it, the more I find this conclusion impressed upon me, that the greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and tell what it saw in a plain way.”

— John Ruskin

160. “The force of the guinea you have in your pocket depends wholly on the default of a guinea in your neighbour’s pocket. If he did not want it, it would be of no use to you.”

— John Ruskin

161. “You will find it less easy to unroot faults than to choke them by gaining virtues. Do not think of your faults, still less of others faults; in every person who comes near you look for what is good and strong; honor that; rejoice in it and as you can, try to imitate it; and your faults will drop off like dead leaves when their time comes.”

— John Ruskin

162. “I fear uniformity. You cannot manufacture great men any more than you can manufacture gold.”

— John Ruskin

163. “The constant duty of every man to his fellows is to ascertain his own powers and special gifts, and to strengthen them for the help of others.”

— John Ruskin

164. “Imaginary evils soon become real one by indulging our reflections on them.”

— John Ruskin

165. “What is the cheapest to you now is likely to be the dearest to you in the end.”

— John Ruskin

166. “It is his restraint that is honorable to a person, not their liberty.”

— John Ruskin

167. “Greatness is the aggregation of minuteness; nor can its sublimity be felt truthfully by any mind unaccustomed to the affectionate watching of what is least.”

— John Ruskin

168. “Levi’s station in life was the receipt of custom; and Peter’s, the shore of Galilee; and Paul’s, the antechambers of the High- Priest, which “station in life” each had to leave, with brief notice.”

— John Ruskin

169. “To know anything well involves a profound sensation of ignorance.”

— John Ruskin

170. “No peace was ever won from fate by subterfuge or argument; no peace is ever in store for any of us, but that which we shall win by victory over shame or sin – victory over the sin that oppresses, as well as over that which corrupts.”

— John Ruskin

171. “Beauty deprived of its proper foils and adjuncts ceases to be enjoyed as beauty, just as light deprived of all shadows ceases to be enjoyed as light.”

— John Ruskin

172. “Society has sacrificed its virtues to the Goddess of Getting Along.”

— John Ruskin

173. “Spiritual power begins by directing animal power to other than egoistic ends.”

— John Ruskin

174. “Repose demands for its expression the implied capability of its opposite, – energy.”

— John Ruskin

175. “If you do not wish for His kingdom do not pray for it. But if you do you must do more than pray for it, you must work for it.”

— John Ruskin

176. “Whenever you see want or misery or degradation in this world about you, then be sure either industry has been wanting, or industry has been in error.”

— John Ruskin

177. “All other passions do occasional good; but when pride puts in its word everything goes wrong.”

— John Ruskin

178. “Pleasure comes through toil, and not by self indulgence and indolence. When one gets to love work, his life is a happy one.”

— John Ruskin

179. “Nature is painting for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty if only we have the eyes to see them.”

— John Ruskin

180. “It is far better to give work that is above a person, than to educate the person to be above their work.”

— John Ruskin

181. “Books are divided into two classes, the books of the hour and the books of all time.”

— John Ruskin

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

— John Ruskin

183. “That admiration of the ‘neat but not gaudy,’ which is commonly reported to have influenced the devil when he painted his tail pea green.”

— John Ruskin

184. “If you want knowledge, you must toil for it; if food, you must toil for it; and if pleasure, you must toil for it: toil is the law.”

— John Ruskin

185. “Ornamentation is the principal part of architecture, considered as a subject of fine art.”

— John Ruskin

186. “It is a good and safe rule to sojourn in every place as if you meant to spend your life there, never omitting an opportunity of doing a kindness, or speaking a true word, or making a friend.”

— John Ruskin

187. “To yield reverence to another, to hold ourselves and our lives at his disposal, is not slavery; often, it is the noblest state in which a man can live in this world.”

— John Ruskin

188. “All great art is the expression of man’s delight in God’s work, not his own.”

— John Ruskin

189. “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

190. “No one can do me any good by loving me; I have more love than I need or could do any good with; but people do me good by making me love them – which isn’t easy.”

— John Ruskin

191. “I do not believe that any peacock envies another peacock his tail, because every peacock is persuaded that his own tail is the finest in the world. The consequence of this is that peacocks are peaceable birds.”

— John Ruskin

192. “Our duty is to preserve what the past has had to say for itself, and to say for ourselves what shall be true for the future.”

— John Ruskin

193. “Life is a magic vase filled to the brim, so made that you cannot dip from it nor draw from it; but it overflows into the hand that drops treasures into it. Drop in malice and it overflows hate; drop in charity and it overflows love.”

— John Ruskin

194. “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

195. “That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings.”

— John Ruskin

196. “Nature is always mysterious and secret in her use of means; and art is always likest her when it is most inexplicable.”

— John Ruskin

197. “Beethoven always sounds to me like the upsetting of a bag of nails, with here and there an also dropped hammer.”

— John Ruskin

198. “See! This our fathers did for us.”

— John Ruskin

199. “Trust thou thy Love: if she be proud, is she not sweet? Trust thou thy love: if she be mute, is she not pure? Lay thou thy soul full in her hands, low at her feet- Fail, Sun and Breath!-yet, for thy peace, she shall endure.”

— John Ruskin

200. “The great cry that rises from all our manufacturing cities, louder than the furnace blast, is all in very deed for this – that we manufacture everything there except men.”

— John Ruskin