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 The elaborate style that characterised his earliest writing on art was later superseded...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
A great thing can only be done by a great person; and they do it without effort.
I have not written in vain if I have heretofore done anything towards diminishing the reputation of the Renaissance landscape painting.
Nothing is ever done beautifully which is done in rivalship: or nobly, which is done in pride.
There is no action so slight or so mean but it may be done to a great purpose, and ennobled thereby.
The best work never was and never will be done for money.
I believe the right question to ask, respecting all ornament, is simply this; was it done with enjoyment, was the carver happy while he was about 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.
The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love color the most.
There is nothing in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and he who considers price only is that man's lawful prey.
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.
Every great man is always being helped by everybody; for his gift is to get good out of all things and all persons.
The training which makes men happiest in themselves also makes them most serviceable to others
The weakest among us has a gift, however seemingly trivial, which is peculiar to him, and which worthily used, will be a gift to his race forever
That thirst (for applause) if the last infirmity of noble minds, is also the first infirmity of weak ones