It was stated, . . . that the value of architecture depended on two distinct characters:--the one, the impression it receives from human power; the other, the image it bears of the natural creation. John Ruskin More Quotes by John Ruskin More Quotes From John Ruskin Variety is a positive requisite even in the character of our food. John Ruskin variety character There is nothing that this age, from whatever standpoint we survey it, needs more, physically, intellectually, and morally, than thorough ventilation. John Ruskin thorough age needs If you do not wish for His kingdom do not pray for it. But if you do you must do more than pray for it, you must work for it. John Ruskin kingdoms wish work Work first, and then rest. John Ruskin work firsts Why is one man richer than another? Because he is more industrious, more persevering and more sagacious. John Ruskin one-man wealth men There is rough work to be done, and rough men must do it; there is gentle work to be done, and gentlemen must do it. John Ruskin gentleman work men Absolute ugliness is admitted as rarely as perfect beauty; but degrees of it more or less distinct are associated with whatever has the nature of death and sin, just as beauty is associated with what has the nature of virtue and of life. John Ruskin degrees sin perfect It is better to be nobly remembered than nobly born. John Ruskin remembered reputation born If only the Geologists would let me alone, I could do very well, but those dreadful Hammers! I hear the clink of them at the end of every cadence of the Bible verses. John Ruskin bible-verse cadence hammers It is perhaps the principal admirableness of the Gothic schools of architecture, that they receive the results of the labour of inferior minds; and out of fragments full of imperfectionraise up a stately and unaccusable whole. John Ruskin architecture mind school Value is the life-giving power of anything; cost, the quantity of labour required to produce it; its price, the quantity of labourwhich its possessor will take in exchange for it. John Ruskin produce cost giving He who has learned what is commonly considered the whole art of painting, that is, the art of representing any natural object faithfully, has as yet only learned the language by which his thoughts are to be expressed. John Ruskin painting language art Nothing can be true which is either complete or vacant; every touch is false which does not suggest more than it represents, and every space is false which represents nothing. John Ruskin space truth art That which is required in order to the attainment of accurate conclusions respecting the essence of the Beautiful is nothing morethan earnest, loving, and unselfish attention to our impressions of it. John Ruskin beautiful beauty order If we pretend to have reached either perfection or satisfaction, we have degraded ourselves and our work. God's work only may express that, but ours may never have that sentence written upon it, Behold it was very good. John Ruskin satisfaction perfection may Childhood often holds a truth with its feeble finger, which the grasp of manhood cannot retain,--which it is the pride of utmost age to recover. John Ruskin childhood pride truth The time is probably near when a new system of architectural laws will be developed, adapted entirely to metallic construction. John Ruskin metallic construction law You cannot have good architecture merely by asking people's advice on occasion. All good architecture is the expression of national life and character; and it is produced by a prevalent and eager national taste, or desire for beauty. John Ruskin expression character people But if, indeed, there be a nobler life in us than in these strangely moving atoms; if, indeed, there is an eternal difference between the fire which inhabits them, and that which animates us,--it must be shown, by each of us in his appointed place, not merely in the patience, but in the activity of our hope, not merely by our desire, but our labor, for the time when the dust of the generations of men shall be confirmed for foundations of the gates of the city of God. John Ruskin fire men moving If some people really see angels where others see only empty space, let them paint the angels: only let not anybody else think they can paint an angel too, on any calculated principles of the angelic. John Ruskin space angel thinking
