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 The elaborate style that characterised his earliest writing on art was later superseded...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
air arab careless choice clay crowded deeply differ disgust fields gain greatness happy healthy liberty lime luxury merely national native offended openness painful pitiful population restless roots sacrifice sorrow spot spring stability struck struggling thus
I look upon those pitiful concretions of lime and clay which spring up, in mildewed forwardness, out of the kneaded fields about our capital... not merely with the careless disgust of an offended eye, not merely with sorrow for a desecrated landscape, but with a painful foreboding that the roots of our national greatness must be deeply cankered when they are thus loosely struck in their native ground. The crowded tenements of a struggling and restless population differ only from the tents of the Arab or the Gipsy by their less healthy openness to the air of heaven, and less happy choice of their spot of earth; by their sacrifice of liberty without the gain of rest, and of stability without the luxury of change.
sacrifice simple skills
It is far more difficult to be simple than to be complicated; far more difficult to sacrifice skill and easy execution in the proper place, than to expand both indiscriminately.
passion sacrifice men
Superstition, in all times and among all nations, is the fear of a spirit whose passions are those of a man, whose acts are the acts of a man; who is present in some places, not in others; who makes no places holy and not others; who is kind to one person, unkind to another; who is pleased or angry according to the degree of attention you pay him, or praise you refuse to him; who is hostile generally to human pleasure, but may be bribed by sacrifice of a part of that pleasure into permitting the rest. This, whatever form of faith it colors, is the essence of superstition.
sacrifice giving religion
It is not the church we want, but the sacrifice; not the emotion of admiration, but the act of adoration; not the gift, but the giving.
color english-writer love minds purest thoughtful
The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love color the most.
cannot considers lawful man price sell worse
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.
certain confining degrade material meant measured narrow objects originally sorts wealth word
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.
gift good great helped man
Every great man is always being helped by everybody; for his gift is to get good out of all things and all persons.
happiest men others themselves training
The training which makes men happiest in themselves also makes them most serviceable to others
among forever gift however peculiar race seemingly weakest
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
last noble thirst weak
That thirst (for applause) if the last infirmity of noble minds, is also the first infirmity of weak ones
among bright cannot chief die gracious great joy life marvelous power powers pure reverence tried true
Reverence is the chief joy and power of life - reverence for that which is pure and bright in youth; for what is true and tried in age; for all that is gracious among the living, great among the dead, - and marvelous in the powers that cannot die
charm full language possible secret sympathy
The secret of language is the secret of sympathy and its full charm is possible only to the gentle.
believe great humility man test truly
I believe the first test of a truly great man is humility