69 Wisest John Ruskin Quotes on Life & Art (NATURE)

Top 15 Most Famous John Ruskin Quotes (BEST)

“Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives, the cumulative experience of many masters of craftsmanship. Quality also marks the search for an ideal after necessity has been satisfied and mere usefulness achieved.”
John Ruskin

Nature is painting for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty. — **Nature** is painting for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty.

Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort. — Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of **intelligent** effort.

When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.

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

“No changing of place at a hundred miles an hour will make us one whit stronger, or happier, or wiser. 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. The really precious things are thought and sight, not pace. It does a bullet no good to go fast; and a man, if he be truly a man, no harm to go slow; for his glory is not at all in going, but in being.”
John Ruskin

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

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.

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.

Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. — **Dream** lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become.

“The true end of education is not only to make the young learned, but to make them love learning; not only to make them industrious, but to make them love industry; not only to make them virtuous, but to make them love virtue; not only to make them just, but to make them hunger and thirst after justice.”
John Ruskin

Let every dawn be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close. — Let every dawn be to you as the beginning of **life**, and every setting sun be to you as its close.

Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.

Endurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty. — **Endurance** is nobler than **strength**, and **patience** than **beauty**.

There is no wealth but life. — There is no **wealth** but **life**.

14 Wise John Ruskin Quotes About Art & Nature

“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.”
John Ruskin

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

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

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

It is far more difficult to be simple than to be complicated.

Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery.

All great and beautiful work has come of first gazing without shrinking into the darkness.

It is written on the arched sky; it looks out from every star. It is the poetry of Nature; it is that which uplifts the spirit within us. — It is written on the arched sky; it looks out from every star. It is the **poetry** of **Nature**; it is that which **uplifts** the spirit within us.

The sky is the part of creation in which nature has done for the sake of pleasing man.

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

All art is but dirtying the paper delicately.

Milton saw not, and Beethoven heard not, but the sense of beauty was upon them, and they fain must speak. — Milton saw not, and **Beethoven** heard not, but the sense of beauty was upon them, and they fain must speak.

Skill is the unified force of experience, intellect and passion in their operation. — Skill is the unified force of experience, intellect and **passion** in their operation.

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

2 John Ruskin Quotes About God & The Bible

The Bible is the one Book to which any thoughtful man may go with any honest question of life or destiny and find the answer of God by honest searching. — The **Bible** is the one Book to which any thoughtful man may go with any **honest** question of life or destiny and find the answer of God by honest searching.

There is no harm in anybody thinking that Christ is in bread. The harm is in the expectation of His presence in gunpowder.

5 Inspirational John Ruskin Quotes About Kindness & Humility

“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.”
John Ruskin

Kind hearts are the garden, kind thoughts are the roots, kind words are the blossoms, kind deeds are the fruit. — **Kind** hearts are the **garden**, kind thoughts are the roots, kind words are the blossoms, kind deeds are the fruit.

A little thought and a little kindness are often worth more than a great deal of money. — A little thought and a little **kindness** are often worth more than a great deal of **money**.

“The first test of a truly great man is his humility. By humility I don’t mean doubt of his powers or hesitation in speaking his opinion, but merely an understanding of the relationship of what he can say and what he can do.”
John Ruskin

Give a little love to a child, and you get a great deal back. — Give a little love to a **child**, and you get a great deal back.

3 John Ruskin Quotes on Education

The first duty of government is to see that people have food, fuel, and clothes. The second, that they have means of moral and intellectual education.

To make your children capable of honesty is the beginning of education. — To make your children capable of **honesty** is the beginning of **education**.

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

19 Deep John Ruskin Quotes that will Make You Think

“When we build… let it not be for present delights nor for present use alone. Let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for, and let us think … that a time is to come when these stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say as they look upon the labor, and the wrought substance of them, See! This our fathers did for us!”
John Ruskin

People are eternally divided into two classes, the believer, builder, and praiser… and the unbeliever, destroyer and critic.

If the thing is impossible, you need not trouble yourselves about it; if possible, try for it.

Music when healthy, is the teacher of perfect order, and when depraved, the teacher of perfect disorder. — **Music** when healthy, is the teacher of perfect order, and when depraved, the teacher of perfect disorder.

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

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

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

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. — 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.

Every great person is always being helped by everybody; for their gift is to get good out of all things and all persons. — Every great person is always being helped by everybody; for their **gift** is to get good out of all things and all persons.

He that would be angry and sin not, must not be angry with anything but sin.

No individual rain drop ever considers itself responsible for the flood.

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

Doing is the great thing, for if people resolutely do what is right, they come in time to like doing it.

One can't be angry when one looks at a penguin. — One can’t be angry when one looks at a penguin.

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

Tell me what you like and I'll tell you what you are. — Tell me what you like and I’ll tell you what you are.

Modern travelling is not travelling at all; it is merely being sent to a place, and very little different from becoming a parcel. — Modern **travelling** is not travelling at all; it is merely being sent to a place, and very little different from becoming a parcel.

Punishment is the last and the least effective instrument in the hands of the legislator for the prevention of crime.

Better the rudest work that tells a story or records a fact, than the richest without meaning.

8 John Ruskin Quotes on Books & Reading

“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?”
John Ruskin

A book worth reading is worth owning. — A book worth **reading** is worth owning.

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

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.

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

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

How long most people would look at the best book before they would give the price of a large turbot for it?

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

3 John Ruskin Quotes on Paying Too Much or Too Little

“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.”
John Ruskin