John Ruskin Quotes - Page 18

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The greatest glory of a building is not in its stones, nor in its gold. Its glory is in its Age, and in that deep sense of voicefulness, of stern watching, of mysterious sympathy... which we feel in walls that have long been washed by the passing waves of humanity.

John Ruskin

Wall, Long, Humanity

John Ruskin (1849). “The Seven Lamps of Architecture”, p.172

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The step between practical and theoretic science, is the step between the miner and the geologist, the apocathecary and the chemist.

John Ruskin

Steps, Chemist, Practicals

John Ruskin (1873). “Pt. 3, sections 1-2 of the imaginative and theoretic faculties”, p.8

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There are many religions, but there is only one morality.

John Ruskin

Religion, Morality

John Ruskin (1888). “Sesame and Lilies. Three Lectures”

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Of all the things that oppress me, this sense of the evil working of nature herself -my disgust at her barbarity -clumsiness -darkness -bitter mockery of herself -is the most desolating.

John Ruskin

Evil, Darkness, Clumsiness

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Remember always, in painting as in eloquence, the greater your strength, the quieter will be your manner, and the fewer your words; and in painting, as in all the arts and acts of life the secret of high success will be found, not in a fretful and various excellence, but in a quiet singleness of justly chosen aim.

John Ruskin

Art, Secret, Excellence

John Ruskin (1868). “Precious Thoughts, Moral and Religious”, p.155

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Labour without joy is base. Labour without sorrow is base. Sorrow without labour is base. Joy without labour is base.

John Ruskin

Joy, Sorrow, Labour

'Time and Tide' (1867) letter 5

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I would have, then, our ordinary dwelling-houses built to last, and built to be lovely; as rich and full of pleasantness as may be within and without: . . . with such differences as might suit and express each man's character and occupation, and partly his history.

John Ruskin

Character, Men, Differences

John Ruskin, Louisa Caroline Tuthill (1860). “The True and the Beautiful in Nature, Art, Morals and Religion: Selected from the Works of John Ruskin...”, p.142

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Unless we perform divine service with every willing act of our life, we never perform it at all.

John Ruskin

Action, Divine, Willing

John Ruskin (1866). “The crown of wild olive”, p.28

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One who does not know when to die, does not know how to live.

John Ruskin

Death, Dying, Doe

John Ruskin (2015). “Unto This Last”, p.232, John Ruskin

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Drunkenness is not only the cause of crime, but it is crime; and if any encourage drunkenness for the sake of the profit derived from the sale of drink, they are guilty of a form of moral assassination as criminal as any that has ever been practiced by the braves of any country or of any age.

John Ruskin

Country, Brave, Age

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We have seen when the earth had to be prepared for the habitation of man, a veil, as it were, of intermediate being was spread between him and its darkness, in which were joined in a subdued measure, the stability and insensibility of the earth, and the passion and perishing of mankind.

John Ruskin

Passion, Men, Creation Of Man

John Ruskin (1860). “Modern Painters: pt. 6. Of leaf beauty. pt. 7. Of Cloud beauty. pt. 8-9. Of ideas of relation”, p.109

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It was stated, . . . that the value of architecture depended on two distinct characters:--the one, the impression it receives from human power; the other, the image it bears of the natural creation.

John Ruskin

Character, Two, Bears

John Ruskin (1849). “The Seven Lamps of Architecture”, p.94

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It is a matter of the simplest demonstration, that no man can be really appreciated but by his equal or superior.

John Ruskin

Appreciation, Men, Matter

John Ruskin (1873). “Pt. 1-2. of general principles and of truth”, p.2

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Education is the leading of human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them.

John Ruskin

Education, School, Soul

John Ruskin (1853). “The Stones of Venice: The fall”, p.216

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Nobody cares much at heart about Titian, only there is a strange undercurrent of everlasting murmur about his name, which means the deep consent of all great men that he is greater than they.

John Ruskin

Heart, Mean, Greatness

'The Two Paths' (1859) lecture 2

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One evening, when I was yet in my nurse's arms, I wanted to touch the tea urn, which was boiling merrily ... My nurse would have taken me away from the urn, but my mother said "Let him touch it." So I touched it - and that was my first lesson in the meaning of liberty.

John Ruskin

Mother, Taken, Nurse

John Ruskin (1905). “The Works of John Ruskin”

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The first condition of education is being able to put someone to wholesome and meaningful work.

John Ruskin

Education, Meaningful, Able

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Absolute and entire ugliness is rare.

John Ruskin

Absolutes, Ugliness

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Your art is to be the praise of something that you love. It may only be the praise of a shell or a stone.

John Ruskin

Art, Shells, May

John Ruskin (188?). “Works: "A joy forever." The art of England. "Our fathers have told us." The laws of Fesole. The pleasures of England. Fiction fair and foul. Notes on the construction of sheepfolds. Inaugural address ... Cambridge School of Art, October 29th, 1858. The storm cloud of the nineteenth century. The opening of the Crystal Palace”

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There's no music in rest, but there's the making of music in it. And people are always missing that part of the life melody, always talking of perseverance and courage and fortitude; but patience is the finest and worthiest part of fortitude, and the rarest, too.

John Ruskin

Patience, Perseverance, Talking

John Ruskin (1905). “Sesame and Lilies; The Ethics of the Dust; The Crown of Wild Olive: With Letters on Public Affairs, 1859-1866”

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English artists are usually entirely ruined by residence in Italy.

John Ruskin

Artist, Ruined, Residence

1873 Modern Painters, vol.1, pt.1,'Of General Principles'.

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Men are more evanescent than pictures, yet one sorrows for lost friends, and pictures are my friends. I have none others. I am never long enough with men to attach myself to them; and whatever feelings of attachment I have are to material things.

John Ruskin

Friendship, Men, Long

John Ruskin (1904). “The works of John Ruskin”

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What is in reality cowardice and faithlessness, we call charity, and consider it the part of benevolence sometimes to forgive men's evil practice for the sake of their accurate faith, and sometimes to forgive their confessed heresy for the sake of their admirable practice.

John Ruskin

Reality, Men, Practice

John Ruskin (1853). “The Stones of Venice”, p.109

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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

Art, Greatness, Expression

John Ruskin (1853). “The Stones of Venice: The fall”, p.188

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Our large trading cities bear to me very nearly the aspect of monastic establishments in which the roar of the mill-wheel and the crane takes the place of other devotional music, and in which the worship of Mammon and Moloch is conducted with a tender reverence and an exact propriety; the merchant rising to his Mammon matins, with the self-denial of an anchorite, and expiating the frivolities into which he maybe beguiled in the course of the day by late attendance at Mammon vespers.

John Ruskin

Self, Cities, Rising

John Ruskin (1872). “The Political Economy of Art: Being the Substance (with Additions) of Two Lectures Delivered at Manchester, July 10th and 13th, 1857”, p.124

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Born: February 8, 1819
Died: January 20, 1900
Occupation: Art critic
Cite this Page: Citation

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