Top 15 John Ruskin Quotes

English writer and art critic (1819–1900)

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John Ruskin (8 February 1819 – 20 January 1900) was an English author, poet and painter, most famous for his work as art critic and social critic.

From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Pen Names: Kata Phusin

Alternative Names: Rŏsŭkʻin • J. Ruskin • John Rosukin • Jon Rasukin • Dzhon Rëskin • Ruskin

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To banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality.

It is better to lose your pride with someone you love rather than to lose that someone you love with your useless pride.

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.

All books are divisible into two classes: the books of the hours, and the books of all Time.

The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love color the most.

I believe that the first test of a great man is his humility. I don't mean by humility, doubt of his power. But really great men have a curious feeling that the greatness is not of them, but through them. And they see something divine in every other man and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful.

A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small parcel.

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

The highest reward for a man's toil is not what he gets for it but what he becomes by it.

All art is but dirtying the paper delicately.

It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When
you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you pay
too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you
bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The
common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a
lot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well
to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will
have enough to pay for something better.

A book worth reading is worth owning.

Every increased possession loads us with new weariness.

Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless.

The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion, all in one.