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. John Ruskin More Quotes by John Ruskin More Quotes From John Ruskin 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. John Ruskin change impossible long Endurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty. John Ruskin perseverance patience beauty Wherever the human mind is healthy and vigorous in all its proportions, great in imagination and emotion no less than in intellect, and not overborne by an undue or hardened pre-eminence of the mere reasoning faculties, there the grotesque will exist in full energy. John Ruskin healthy imagination mind I believe the right question to ask, respecting all ornament, is simply this; was it done with enjoyment, was the carver happy while he was about it? John Ruskin ornaments done believe The plea of ignorance will never take away our responsibilities. John Ruskin ignorance responsibility He who can take no interest in what is small will take false interest in what is great. John Ruskin trust interest life The measure of any great civilization is its cities and a measure of a city's greatness is to be found in the quality of its public spaces, its parks and squares. John Ruskin greatness squares civilization Better the rudest work that tells a story or records a fact, than the richest without meaning. John Ruskin records rude stories There is no solemnity so deep, to a right-thinking creature, as that of dawn. John Ruskin solemnity dawn thinking A book worth reading is worth buying. John Ruskin buying reading book The very cheapness of literature is making even wise people forget that if a book is worth reading, it is worth buying. No book is worth anything which is not worth much; nor is it serviceable, until it has been read, and re-read, and loved, and loved again; and marked, so that you can refer to the passages you want in it. John Ruskin reading wise book [For men] to feel their souls withering within them, unthanked, to find their whole being sunk into an unrecognized abyss, to be counted off into a heap of mechanism numbered with its wheels, and weighed with its hammer strokes - this, nature bade not, - this, God blesses not, - this, humanity for no long time is able to endure. John Ruskin political men long Will you not covet such power as this, and seek such throne as this, and be no more housewives, but queens? There is no putting by that crown; queens you must always be; queens to your lovers; queens to your husbands and sons; queens of higher mystery to the world beyond. . . . But alas! you are too often idle and careless queens, grasping at majesty in the least things, while you abdicate it in the greatest. John Ruskin queens husband son Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery. John Ruskin climbing mountain hiking Give me some mud off a city crossing, some ochre out of a gravel pit and a little whitening and some coal dust and I will paint you a luminous picture if you give me time to gradate my mud and subdue my dust. John Ruskin dust cities giving You may chisel a boy into shape, as you would a rock, or hammer him into it, if he be of a better kind, as you would a piece of bronze. But you cannot hammer a girl into anything. She grows as a flower does. John Ruskin girl flower cute Don't just look at buildings ... watch them. John Ruskin architecture watches looks But I beg you to observe that there is a wide difference between being captains or governors of work, and taking the profits of it. It does not follow, because you are general of an army, that you are to take all the treasure, or land, it wins; (if it fight for treasure or land); neither, because you are king of a nation, that you are to consume all the profits of the nation's work. John Ruskin army fighting kings The true work of a critic is not to make his hearer believe him, but agree with him. John Ruskin agree critics believe 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. John Ruskin well-being wealth certain
