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Quotes by John Ruskin

English critic, essayist, & reformer (1819 - 1900)

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When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.

In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: They must be fit for it. They must not do too much of it. And they must have a sense of success in it.

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

...in order that a man may be happy, it is necessary that he should not only be capable of his work, but a good judge of his work.

The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.

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

Education is the leading of human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them.

Do not think of your faults, still less of others' faults; look for what is good and strong, and try to imitate it. Your faults will drop off, like dead leaves, when their time comes.

Every increased possession loads us with new weariness.

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.

Taste is not only a part and index of morality, it is the only morality. The first, and last, and closest trial question to any living creature is "What do you like?" Tell me what you like, I'll tell you what you are.

Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them.

Of all the pulpits from which human voice is ever sent forth, there is none from which it reaches so far as from the grave.

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.

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.

This is the true nature of home -- it is the place of Peace; the shelter, not only from injury, but from all terror, doubt and division.

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces up, and snow is exhilarating; there is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.

Let us reform our schools, and we shall find little reform needed in our prisons.

We require from buildings, as from men, two kinds of goodness: first, the doing their practical duty well: then that they be graceful and pleasing in doing it; which last is itself another form of duty.

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

There is nothing in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and he who considers price only is that man's lawful prey.

Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of intelligent effort.

I believe that the first test of a truly great man is his humility. I don't mean by humility, doubt of his power. But really great men have a curious feeling that the greatness is not of them, but through them. And they see something divine in every other man and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful.

There is no wealth but life.

The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion, all in one.