John Ruskin
John Ruskin
John Ruskinwas the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and political economy. His writing styles and literary forms were equally varied. Ruskin penned essays and treatises, poetry and lectures, travel guides and manuals, letters and even a fairy tale. The elaborate style that characterised his earliest writing on art was later superseded...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth8 February 1819
He who has truth at his heart need never fear the want of persuasion on his tongue.
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.
Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.
Flowers seem intended for the solace of ordinary humanity.
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.
Genius is only a superior power of seeing.
Blue color is everlastingly appointed by the deity to be a source of delight.
Come, ye cold winds, at January's call, On whistling wings, and with white flakes bestrew The earth.
It’s unwise to pay too much, but it’s worse to pay too little.
It takes a great deal of living to get a little deal of learning.
On the whole, it is patience which makes the final difference between those who succeed or fail in all things. All the greatest people have it in an infinite degree, and among the less, the patient weak ones always conquer the impatient strong.
People are eternally divided into two classes, the believer, builder, and praiser...and the unbeliever, destroyer and critic.
The strength and power of a country depends absolutely on the quantity of good men and women in it.
He that would be angry and sin not, must not be angry with anything but sin.