80+ Best John Ruskin Quotes From The English Writer, Painter, And Philanthropist

John Ruskin is a prominently known art critic, patron, watercolor painter, and philosopher who was famous for his paintings and philosophies in the Victorian era.

He wrote on varied topics such as geology, architecture, education, literature, and many more. His thoughts on life, art, and other subjects in his essays had him deemed as one of the major contributors to the world of literary art.

He was also prolific in the art of painting and his detailed watercolor paintings made him a very influential figure in the Victorian period. We have listed his cultivation quotes and famous quotes on nature beauty. Here is a list of some of the choicest John Ruskin quotes.

If you like our content, you can also check out other articles like Art quotes and Monet quotes.

Here is a list of the best and the most beautiful John Ruskin quotes for you.

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

-John Ruskin.

2. "Every increased possession loads us with new weariness."

-John Ruskin.

3. "There is no wealth but life."

-John Ruskin.

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

-John Ruskin.

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

-John Ruskin.

6. "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."

-John Ruskin.

7. "Remember that most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies, for instance."

-John Ruskin.

8. "The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most."

-John Ruskin.

9. "An architect should live as little in cities as a painter. Send him to our hills, and let him study there what nature understands by a buttress, and what by a dome."

-John Ruskin.

10. "In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: They must be fit for it. They must not do too much of it. And they must have a sense of success in it."

-John Ruskin.

11. "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."

-John Ruskin.

12. "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."

-John Ruskin.

13. "Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see."

-John Ruskin.

14. "Modern traveling is not traveling at all; it is merely being sent to a place, and very little different from becoming a parcel."

-John Ruskin.

15. "Your faults will drop off like dead leaves when their time comes."

-John Ruskin.

16. "Books are divisible into two classes, the books of the hour and the books of all time."

-John Ruskin.

17. "In order that a man may be happy, it is necessary that he should not only be capable of his work, but a good judge of his work."

-John Ruskin.

18. "Do not think of your faults, still less of other's faults look for what is good and strong, and try to imitate it."

-John Ruskin.  

19. "There was always more in the world than man could see, walked they ever so slowly; they will see it no better for going fast."

-John Ruskin.

20. "No changing of place at a hundred miles an hour will make us one whit stronger, or happier, or wiser."

-John Ruskin.

Fall in love with these beautiful soul-soothing John Ruskin quotes about the beauty of nature and art and the arts.

21. "He who has truth at his heart need never fear the want of persuasion on his tongue."

-John Ruskin.

22. "Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort."

-John Ruskin.

23. "There is never vulgarity in a whole truth, however commonplace. It may be unimportant or painful. It cannot be vulgar. Vulgarity is only in concealment of truth, or in affectation."

-John Ruskin.

24. "Every great man is always being helped by everybody; for his gift is to get good out of all things and all persons."

-John Ruskin.

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

-John Ruskin.

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

-John Ruskin.

27. "When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece."

-John Ruskin.

28. "Every increased possession loads us with new weariness."

-John Ruskin.

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

-John Ruskin.

30. "Let every dawn of morning be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close."

-John Ruskin.

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

-John Ruskin.

32. "If a book is worth reading, it is worth buying."

-John Ruskin.

33. "A book worth reading is worth owning."

-John Ruskin.

34. "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."

-John Ruskin.

35. "Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become."

-John Ruskin.

36. "Education does not mean teaching people what they do not know. It means teaching them to behave as they do not behave."

-John Ruskin.

37. "All art is but dirtying the paper delicately."

-John Ruskin.

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

-John Ruskin.

Here is a list of some of the choicest John Ruskin quotes including John Ruskin education quotes.

39. "Whether for life or death, do your own work well."

-John Ruskin.

40. "You can only possess beauty through understanding it."

-John Ruskin.

41. "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."

-John Ruskin.

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

-John Ruskin.

43. "Imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know in life."

-John Ruskin.

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

-John Ruskin.

45. "The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and what it saw in a plain way."

-John Ruskin.

46. "Imaginary evils soon become real ones by indulging our reflections on them."

-John Ruskin.

47. "Quality also marks the search for an ideal after necessity has been satisfied and mere usefulness achieved."

-John Ruskin.

48. "The best thing in life aren't things."

-John Ruskin.

49. "To speak and act truth with constancy and precision is nearly as difficult, and perhaps as meritorious, as to speak it under intimidation or penalty."

-John Ruskin.

50. "At least be sure you go to the author to find his meaning, not to find yours."

-John Ruskin.

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

-John Ruskin.

52. "The common practice of keeping up appearances with society is a mere selfish struggle of the vain with the vain."

-John Ruskin.

53. "Nothing can be beautiful which is not true."

-John Ruskin.

54. "Flowers seem intended for the solace of ordinary humanity."

-John Ruskin.

55. "Life being very short, and the quiet hours of it few, we ought to waste none of them in reading valueless books."

-John Ruskin.

56. "To watch the corn grow, or the blossoms set; to draw hard breath over the plough or spade; to read, to think, to love, to pray, are the things that make men happy."

-John Ruskin.

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

-John Ruskin.

58. "All great art is praise."

-John Ruskin.

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

-John Ruskin.

60. "It is far better to give work that is above a person, than to educate the person to be above their work."

-John Ruskin.

61. "A thing of worth is what it can do for you, not what you choose to pay for it."

-John Ruskin.

62. "What right have you to take the word wealth, which originally meant 'well-being,' and degrade and narrow it by confining it to certain sorts of material objects measured by money."

-John Ruskin.

63. "When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought is incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do."

-John Ruskin.

Here is a list of some exemplary quotes by art critic, John Ruskin including John Ruskin quotes about cathedrals and John Ruskin quotes on cultivation.

64. "I want to speak to you about the treasures hidden in books; and about the way we find them, and the way we lose them."

-John Ruskin.

65. "It is a wiser, more generous, more noble thing to remember and point out the perfect words, than to invent poorer ones, wherewith to encumber temporarily the world."

-John Ruskin.

66. "Nothing is ever done beautifully which is done in rivalship: or nobly, which is done in pride."

-John Ruskin.

67. "If only the Geologists would let me alone, I could do very well, but those dreadful Hammers! I hear the clink of them at the end of every cadence of the Bible verses."

-John Ruskin.

68. "All that we call ideal in Greek or any other art, because to us it is false and visionary, was, to the makers of it, true and existent."

-John Ruskin.

69. "The majesty of nature depends upon the force of the human spirit."

-John Ruskin.

70. "Men cannot not live by exchanging articles, but producing them. They live by work not trade."

-John Ruskin.

71. "Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts - the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art."

-John Ruskin.

72. "Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together."

-John Ruskin.

73. "There is material enough in a single flower for the ornament of a score of cathedrals."

-John Ruskin.

74. "All great art is the expression of man's delight in God's work, not his own."

-John Ruskin.

75. "No person who is not a great sculptor or painter can be an architect. If he is not a sculptor or painter, he can only be a builder."

-John Ruskin.

76. "Natural abilities can almost compensate for the want of every kind of cultivation, but no cultivation of the mind can make up for the want of natural abilities."

-John Ruskin.

77. "For, truly, the man who does not know when to die, does not know how to live."

-John Ruskin.

78. "The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it."

-John Ruskin.

79. "In general, pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes."

-John Ruskin.

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

-John Ruskin.

81. "When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone... 'See! This our fathers did for us."

-John Ruskin.

82. "In the purest landscape, the human subject is the immortality of the soul by the faithfulness of love."

-John Ruskin.

83. "What we think or what we know or what we believe is in the end of little consequence. The only thing of consequence is what we do."

-John Ruskin, 'The Crown of Wild Olive'.

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