Quotes from John Ruskin

To give alms is nothing unless you give thought also.

The highest reward for man's toil is not what he gets for it but what he becomes by it.

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

Obey something, and you will have a chance to learn what is best to obey. But if you begin by obeying nothing, you will end by obeying the devil and all his invited friends.

God gives us always strength enough and sense enough for everything He wants us to do.

All violent feelings have the same effect. They produce in us a falseness in all our impressions of external things, which I would generally characterize as the pathetic fallacy.

Much of the character of everyman may be read in his house.

The relative majesty of buildings depends more on the weight and vigour of their masses than any other tribute of their design.

To make your children capable of honesty is the beginning of education.

The object of true education is to make people not merely do the right things, but enjoy them

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

Failure is less attributable to either insufficiency of means or impatience of labours than to a confused understanding of the thing actually to be done.

The greatest thing a human being ever does in this world is to see something... To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion all in one.

No human face is exactly the same in its lines on each side, no leaf perfect in its lobes, no branch in its symmetry. All admit irregularity as they imply change; and to banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality. All things are literally better, lovelier, and more beloved for the imperfections which have been divinely appointed, that the law of human life may be Effort, and the law of human judgment, Mercy.

There is no wealth but life. Life, including all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest numbers of noble and happy human beings; that man is richest, who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal, and by means of his possessions, over the lives of others.

Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort. There must be the will to produce a superior thing.

To be taught to read—what is the use of that, if you know not whether what you read is false or true? To be taught to write or to speak—but what is the use of speaking, if you have nothing to say? To be taught to think—nay, what is the use of being able to think, if you have nothing to think of? But to be taught to see is to gain word and thought at once, and both true.

Cookery means…English thoroughness, French art, and Arabian hospitality; it means the knowledge of all fruits and herbs and balms and spices; it means carefulness, inventiveness, and watchfulness.

The entire object of true education is to make people not merely do the right things, but enjoy the right things — not merely industrious, but to love industry — not merely learned, but to love knowledge — not merely pure, but to love purity — not merely just, but to hunger and thirst after justice.

Education...is a painful, continual and difficult work to be done in kindness, by watching, by warning,... by praise, but above all -- by example.

Art is not a study of positive reality, it is the seeking for ideal truth.

There is scarcely anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse, and sell a little more cheaply. The person who buys on price alone is this man's lawful prey.

The best thing in life aren't things.

The path of a good woman is indeed strewn with flowers; but they rise behind her steps, not before them.