John Ruskin
John Ruskin
John Ruskinwas the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and political economy. His writing styles and literary forms were equally varied. Ruskin penned essays and treatises, poetry and lectures, travel guides and manuals, letters and even a fairy tale. The elaborate style that characterised his earliest writing on art was later superseded...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth8 February 1819
God gives us always strength enough, and sense enough, for everything He wants us to do.
There is a working class - strong and happy - among both rich and poor: there is an idle class - weak, wicked, and miserable - among both rich and poor.
Imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know of life. It is the sign of life in a mortal body, that is to say, of a state of progress and change. Nothing that lives is, or can be rigidly perfect; part of it is decaying, part nascent.
Know thyself, for through thyself only thou canst know God.
Art is not a study of positive reality, it is the seeking for ideal truth.
Let every dawn be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close.
All art is but dirtying the paper delicately.
To make your children capable of honesty is the beginning of education.
Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance.
It is better to lose your pride with someone you love rather than to lose that someone you love with your useless pride.
He who can take no interest in what is small will take false interest in what is great.
You may either win your peace or buy it: win it, by resistance to evil; buy it, by compromise with evil.
All great and beautiful work has come of first gazing without shrinking into the darkness.
A little thought and a little kindness are often worth more than a great deal of money.