John Ruskin Quotes

There is no wealth but life. Life, including all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest numbers of noble and happy human beings; that man is richest, who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal, and by means of his possessions, over the lives of others.

The greatest thing a human being ever does in this world is to see something... To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion all in one.

Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort. There must be the will to produce a superior thing.

The entire object of true education is to make people not merely do the right things, but enjoy the right things — not merely industrious, but to love industry — not merely learned, but to love knowledge — not merely pure, but to love purity — not merely just, but to hunger and thirst after justice.

You can only possess beauty through understanding it.

Cookery means…English thoroughness, French art, and Arabian hospitality; it means the knowledge of all fruits and herbs and balms and spices; it means carefulness, inventiveness, and watchfulness.

To be taught to read — what is the use of that, if you know not whether what you read is false or true? To be taught to write or to speak — but what is the use of speaking, if you have nothing to say? To be taught to think — nay, what is the use of being able to think, if you have nothing to think of? But to be taught to see is to gain word and thought at once, and both true.

Education...is a painful, continual and difficult work to be done in kindness, by watching, by warning,... by praise, but above all — by example.

Art is not a study of positive reality, it is the seeking for ideal truth.

The best thing in life aren't things.

There is scarcely anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse, and sell a little more cheaply. The person who buys on price alone is this man's lawful prey.

When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone. Let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for; and let us think, as we lay stone on stone, that a time is to come when those stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say, as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, 'See! This our fathers did for us.

The path of a good woman is indeed strewn with flowers; but they rise behind her steps, not before them.

Taste is the only morality. Tell me what you like and I'll tell you what you are.

To be able to ask a question clearly is two-thirds of the way to getting it answered.