John Ruskin
English art critic and social thinker, 1819-1900
70 quotes.
Quotes by John Ruskin
- Man's only true happiness is to live in Hope of something to be won by him, in Reverence of something to be worshipped by him, and in Love of something to be cherished by him, and cherished--for ever.
- No good work whatever can be perfect; and the demand for perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art.
- No victory worth having was ever won without cost.
- Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort. There must be the will to produce a superior thing.
- Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them.
- The beginning of all good law, and nearly the end of it, is that every man shall do good work for his bread, and that every man shall have good bread for his work.
- The best things in life aren’t things.
- The entire object of true education is to make people not merely do the right things, but enjoy the right things.
- The essence of a lie is in deception, not in words.
- The greatest reward is not what we receive for our labor, but what we become by it.
- The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.
- The only way to understand the difficult parts of the Bible is first to read and obey the easy ones.
- The wealth of a country is in its good men and women, and in nothing else.
- The wisdom of life is in preventing all the evil we can, and using what is inevitable to the best purpose.
- There is in this world infinitely more joy than pain to be shared, if you will only take your share when it is set before you.
- There is no wealth but life--life, including all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration.
- Though you may have known clever men who were indolent, you never knew a great man who was so; and when I hear a young man spoken of as giving promise of great genius, the first question I ask about him always is, Does he work?
- To be able to ask a question clearly is two-thirds of the way to getting it answered.
- To use books rightly is to go to them for help.
- We were not sent into this world to do anything into which we cannot put our hearts.
- What is cheapest to you now is likely to be dearest in the end.
- What we like determines what we are, and is the sign of what we are.
- What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do.
- When a man is wrapped up in himself he makes a pretty small package.
- Whether it be for life or death, do your own work well.
- Work is only done well when it is done with a will.
- You are always willing enough to read lives, but never willing to lead them.
- You do not educate a man by telling him what he knew not, but by making him what he was not, and what he will remain for ever.
- You will find it less easy to uproot faults, than to choke them by gaining virtues.
- You will find that the mere resolve not to be useless, and the honest desire to help other people, will, in the quickest and delicatest ways, improve yourself.