770 Quotes by John Ruskin

A man is known to his dog by the smell, to his tailor by the coat, to his friend by the smile; each of these know him, but how little or how much depends on the dignity of the intelligence. That which is truly and indeed characteristic of the man is known only to God.

Flowers seem intended for the solace of ordinary humanity.

Work first and then rest. Work first, and then gaze, but do not use golden ploughshares, nor bind ledgers in enamel.

Science deals exclusively with things as they are in themselves.

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.

The noble grotesque involves the true appreciation of beauty.

It is not possible to find a landscape, which if painted precisely as it is, will not make an impressive picture. No one knows, till he has tried, what strange beauty and subtle composition is prepared to his hand by Nature.

Without mountains the air could not be purified, nor the flowing of the rivers sustained.

There is in every animal's eye a dim image and gleam of humanity, a flash of strange light through which their life looks out and up to our great mystery of command over them, and claims the fellowship of the creature if not of the soul.