John Ruskin Quotes (219 Quotes)


    I believe that the first test of a truly great man is his humility. Really great men have a curious feeling that the greatness is not in them but through them. And they see something divine in every other man and are endlessly, incredibly merciful.

    One of the prevailing sources of misery and crime is in the generally accepted assumption, that because things have been wrong a long time, it is impossible they will ever be right.

    Once thoroughly our own knowledge ceases to give us pleasure.

    It is advisable that a person know at least three things, where they are, where they are going, and what they had best do under the circumstances.

    When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.


    Blue color is everlastingly appointed by the Deity to be a source of delight

    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

    Along the iron veins that traverse the frame of our country, beat and flow the fiery pulses of its exertion, hotter and faster every hour. All vitality is concentrated through those throbbing arteries into the central cities the country is passed over like a green sea by narrow bridges, and we are thrown back in continually closer crowds on the city gates.

    The child who desires education will be bettered by it; the child who dislikes it disgraced.

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

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

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


    The proof of a thing's being right is that it has power over the heart that it excites us, wins us, or helps us.

    No lying knight or lying priest ever prospered in any age, but especially not in the dark ones. Men prospered then only in following an openly declared purpose, and preaching candidly beloved and trusted creeds.

    Natural abilities can almost compensate for the want of every kind of cultivation, but no cultivation of the mind can make up for the want of natural abilities.

    What is poetry The suggestion, by the imagination, of noble grounds for the noble emotions.

    To watch the corn grow, or the blossoms set to draw hard breath over the plough or spade to read, to think, to love, to pray, are the things that make men happy.

    The beginning and almost the end of all good law is that everyone shall work for their bread and receive good bread for their work.


    Related Authors


    O. Henry - Niccolo Machiavelli - Napoleon Hill - Rudyard Kipling - Michael Cunningham - Joseph Addison - John Grisham - Edward Fairfax - Arthur C. Clarke - Antiphanes


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