Nature is always mysterious and secret in her use of means; and art is always likest her when it is most inexplicable. — John Ruskin Copy Share Image
Painting with all its technicalities, difficulties, and peculiar ends, is nothing but a noble and expressive language, invaluable as the vehicle of… — John Ruskin Copy Share Image
It is in this power of saying everything, and yet saying nothing too plainly, that the perfection of art consists. — John Ruskin Copy Share Image
Every good piece of art... involves first essentially the evidence of human skill, and the formation of an actually beautiful thing by… — John Ruskin Copy Share Image
“Nature is painting for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty if only we have the eyes to see them.” — John Ruskin Copy Share Image
He is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the sum of his works, the greatest number of the greatest ideas. — John Ruskin Copy Share Image
An artist should be well read in the best books, and thoroughly high bred, both in heart and bearing. In a word,… — John Ruskin Copy Share Image
I have not written in vain if I have heretofore done anything towards diminishing the reputation of the Renaissance landscape painting. — John Ruskin Copy Share Image
If it is the love of that which your work represents--if, being a landscape painter, it is love of hills and trees… — John Ruskin Copy Share Image
The eye is continually influenced by what it cannot detect; nay, it is not going too far, to say that it is… — John Ruskin Copy Share Image
The artist's business is to feel, although he may think a little sometimes... when he has nothing better to do. — John Ruskin Copy Share Image
To follow art for the sake of being a great man, and therefore to cast about continually for some means of achieving… — John Ruskin Copy Share Image
Great art is precisely that which never was, nor will be taught, it is preeminently and finally the expression of the spirits… — John Ruskin Copy Share Image
Your art is to be the praise of something that you love. It may only be the praise of a shell or… — John Ruskin Copy Share Image
Sculpture is not the mere cutting of the form of anything in stone; it is the cutting of the effect of it.… — John Ruskin Copy Share Image
Depend upon it, the first universal characteristic of all great art is Tenderness, as the second is Truth. — John Ruskin Copy Share Image
“Occult Theft,--Theft which hides itself even from itself, and is legal, respectable, and cowardly,--corrupts the body and soul of man, to the last fibre… — John Ruskin Copy Share Image
Mighty of heart, mighty of mind, magnanimous-to be this is indeed to be great in life. — John Ruskin Copy Share Image
Life is a magic vase filled to the brim, so made that you cannot dip from it nor draw from it; but it overflows… — John Ruskin Copy Share Image
As in the instances of alchemy, astrology, witchcraft, and other such popular creeds, political economy, has a plausible idea at the root of it. — John Ruskin Copy Share Image
I am far more provoked at being thought foolish by foolish people, than pleased at being thought sensible by sensible people; and the average… — John Ruskin Copy Share Image
When we build ... let it not be for present delights nor for present use alone. Let it be such work as our descendants… — John Ruskin Copy Share Image
It is far more difficult to be simple than to be complicated; far more difficult to sacrifice skill and easy execution in the proper… — John Ruskin Copy Share Image
It is a good and safe rule to sojourn in every place as if you meant to spend your life there, never omitting an… — John Ruskin Copy Share Image
“You may trust to the truth of my sympathy; but you must remember that I am engaged in the investigation of enormous religious and… — John Ruskin Copy Share Image
And remember, child, that nothing is ever done beautifully, which is done in rivalship; or nobly, which is done in pride. — John Ruskin Copy Share Image
The world is full of vulgar Purists, who bring discredit on all selection by the silliness of their choice; and this the more, because… — John Ruskin Copy Share Image
