John Ruskin Quotes

What do we, as a nation, care about books? How much do you think we spend altogether on our libraries, public or private, as compared with what we spend on our horses?

What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do.

When a man is wrapped up in himself he makes a pretty small package.

When I have been unhappy, I have heard an opera ... and it seemed the shrieking of winds; when I am happy, a sparrow's chirp is delicious to me. But it is not the chirp that makes me happy, but I that make it sweet. [Happiness]

When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece. [Love]

When men are rightfully occupied, then their amusement grows out of their work as the color petals out of a fruitful garden. [Happiness]

When we build, let us think that we build for ever.

Whereas it has long been known and declared that the poor have no right to the property of the rich, I wish it also to be known and declared that the rich have no right to the property of the poor.

Whether for life or death, do your own work well.

Without seeking, truth cannot be known at all. It can neither be declared from pulpits, nor set down in articles, nor in any wise prepared and sold in packages ready for use. Truth must be ground for every man by himself out of its husk, with such help as he can get, indeed, but not without stern labor of his own. [Truth]

Work first and then rest. Work first, and then gaze, but do not use golden ploughshares, nor bind ledgers in enamel.

You can talk a mob into anything; its feelings may be - usually are - on the whole generous and right: but it has no foundation for them, no hold of them; you may tease or tickle it into any, at your pleasure; it thinks by infection, for the most part, catching a passion like a cold, and there is nothing so little that it will not roar itself wild about, when the fit is on; nothing so great but it will forget it in an hour, when the fit is past. But a gentleman's, or a gentle nation's passions are just, measured, and continuous.

You may either win your peace or buy it: win it, by resistance to evil; buy it, by compromise with evil.

You might sooner get lightning out of incense smoke than true action or passion out of your modern English religion. [Action]

You must either make a tool of the creature, or a man of him.

You talk of the scythe of Time, and the tooth of Time: I tell you, Time is scytheless and toothless; it is we who gnaw like the worm - we who smite like the scythe. It is ourselves who abolish - ourselves who consume: we are the mildew, and the flame.

You were made for enjoyment, and the world was filled with things which you will enjoy, unless you are too proud to be pleased with them, or too grasping to care for what you cannot turn to other account than mere delight. Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless: peacocks and lilies, for instance.

You will find it less easy to uproot faults, than to choke them by gaining virtues. [Faults]

You will find that the mere resolve not to be useless, and the honest desire to help other people, will, in the quickest and delicatest ways, improve yourself.

Your honesty is not to be based either on religion or policy. Both your religion and policy must be based on it. Your honesty must be based, as the sun is, in vacant heaven; poised, as the lights in the firmament, which have rule over the day and over the night.