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 The elaborate style that characterised his earliest writing on art was later superseded...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
There are no such things as Flowers there are only gladdened Leaves.
Man's only true happiness is to live in hope of something to be won by him.
You can only possess beauty through understanding it.
Let every dawn of the morning be to you as the beginning of life. And let every setting of the sun be to you as its close. Then let everyone of these short lives leave its sure record of some kindly thing done for others; some good strength of knowledge gained for yourself.
On the whole, it is patience which makes the final difference between those who succeed or fail in all things. All the greatest people have it in an infinite degree, and among the less, the patient weak ones always conquer the impatient strong.
The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most.
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.