John Ruskin

There is never vulgarity in a whole truth, however commonplace. It may be unimportant or painful. It cannot be vulgar. Vulgarity is…

— John Ruskin

I know few Christians so convinced of the splendor of the rooms in their Father's house, as to be happier when their…

— John Ruskin

To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion all in one.

— John Ruskin

I would rather teach drawing that my pupils may learn to love nature, than teach the looking at nature that they may…

— John Ruskin

To do your own work well, whether it be for life or death.

— John Ruskin

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

— John Ruskin

You must get into the habit of looking intensely at words, and assuring yourself of their meaning, syllable by syllable-nay, letter by…

— John Ruskin

“So far, therefore, as the science of exchange relates to the advantage of one of the exchanging persons only, it is founded…

— John Ruskin

All traveling becomes dull in exact proportion to its rapidity.

— John Ruskin

The man who says to one, go, and he goeth, and to another, come, and he cometh, has, in most cases, more…

— John Ruskin

Whenever I did anything wrong, stupid or hard-hearted, and I have done many things that were all three, my mother always said…

— John Ruskin

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

— John Ruskin

You should read books like you take medicine, by advice, and not by advertisement.

— John Ruskin

Conceit may puff a man up, but never prop him up.

— John Ruskin

There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the…

— John Ruskin

Much of the character of everyman may be read in his house.

— John Ruskin

No good work whatever can be perfect, and the demand for perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends…

— John Ruskin

The great cry that rises from our manufacturing cities, louder than their furnace blast, is all in very deed for this, that…

— John Ruskin

How false is the conception, how frantic the pursuit, of that treacherous phantom which men call Liberty: most treacherous, indeed, of all…

— John Ruskin

If we pretend to have reached either perfection or satisfaction, we have degraded ourselves and our work. God's work only may express…

— John Ruskin

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

— John Ruskin

There is large difference between indolent impatience of labor and intellectual impatience of delay, large difference between leaving things unfinished because we…

— John Ruskin

No human being, however great, or powerful, was ever so free as a fish.

— John Ruskin

When men are rightly occupied, their amusement grows out of their work, as the colour-petals out of a fruitful flower; when they…

— John Ruskin

See! This our fathers did for us.

— John Ruskin