John Ruskin Quotes About Pleasure

Quotes about: Pleasure

• 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

  Law, Toil, Want

  John Ruskin (1871). “Selections from the Writings of John Ruskin”, p.439

• Once thoroughly our own, the knowledge ceases to give us pleasure.

  John Ruskin

  Knowledge, Giving, Pleasure

  "The Stones of Venice".

• The greatest efforts of the race have always been traceable to the love of praise, as the greatest catastrophes to the love of pleasure.

  John Ruskin

  Race, Effort, Praise

  John Ruskin (2008). “The Lamp of Memory”, p.43, Penguin UK

• 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

  Work, Self, Toil

• The fact of our deriving constant pleasure from whatever is a type or semblance of divine attributes, and from nothing but that which is so, is the most glorious of all that can be demonstrated of human nature; it not only sets a great gulf of specific separation between us and the lower animals, but it seems a promise of a communion ultimately deep, close, and conscious, with the Being whose darkened manifestations we here feebly and unthinkingly delight in.

  John Ruskin

  Animal, Promise, Delight

  John Ruskin (1858). “Modern Painters: (pt.3) Of ideas of beauty”, p.86

• Men have commonly more pleasure in the criticism which hurts than in that which is innocuous, and are more tolerant of the severity which breaks hearts and ruins fortunes than of that which falls impotently on the grave.

  John Ruskin

  Hurt, Fall, Heart

  John Ruskin (1862). “pt. I. Of genral principles. pt. II. Of truth. v. 4. pt. v. Of mountain beauty”, p.14

• Superstition, in all times and among all nations, is the fear of a spirit whose passions are those of a man, whose acts are the acts of a man; who is present in some places, not in others; who makes no places holy and not others; who is kind to one person, unkind to another; who is pleased or angry according to the degree of attention you pay him, or praise you refuse to him; who is hostile generally to human pleasure, but may be bribed by sacrifice of a part of that pleasure into permitting the rest. This, whatever form of faith it colors, is the essence of superstition.

  John Ruskin

  Passion, Sacrifice, Men

  John Ruskin (1907). “The Religion of Ruskin: The Life and Works of John Ruskin; a Biographical and Anthological Study”

• Perfect taste is the faculty of receiving the greatest possible pleasure from those material sources which are attractive to oar moral nature in its purity and perfection.

  John Ruskin

  Perfect, Taste, Receiving

• 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

  Art, Men, Sight

  John Ruskin (1849). “The Seven Lamps of Architecture”, p.7

• He who has once stood beside the grave, to look back upon the companionship which has been forever closed, feeling how impotent there are the wild love, or the keen sorrow, to give one instant's pleasure to the pulseless heart, or atone in the lowest measure to the departed spirit for the hour of unkindness, will scarcely for the future incur that debt to the heart which can only be discharged to the dust.

  John Ruskin

  Heart, Dust, Giving

  John Ruskin (1848). “Modern Painters”, p.6

• We need examples of people who, leaving Heaven to decide whether they are to rise in the world, decide for themselves that they will be happy in it, and have resolved to seek not greater wealth, but simpler pleasure; not higher fortune, but deeper felicity; making the first of possessions, self-possession; and honouring themselves in the harmless pride and calm pursuits of peace.

  John Ruskin

  Pride, Self, People

  John Ruskin, Christine Roth (2004). “The Two Paths”, p.148, Parlor Press LLC

• Curiosity is a gift, a capacity of pleasure in knowing, which if you destroy, you make yourself cold and dull.

  John Ruskin

  Knowing, Curiosity, Dull

• It is not so much in buying pictures as in being pictures, that you can encourage a noble school. The best patronage of art is not that which seeks for the pleasures of sentiment in a vague ideality, nor for beauty of form in a marble image, but that which educates your children into living heroes, and binds down the flights and the fondnesses of the heart into practical duty and faithful devotion.

  John Ruskin

  Art, Children, Hero

  John Ruskin, Louisa Caroline Tuthill (1867). “Precious Thoughts: Moral and Religious. Gathered from the Works of John Ruskin, A. M.”, p.77

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