770 Quotes by John Ruskin

The secret of language is the secret of sympathy, and its full charm is possible only to the gentle

... the weakest among us has a gift, however seemingly trivial, which is peculiar to him, and which, worthily used, will be a gift also to his race forever.

It takes a great deal of living to get a little deal of learning.

There is but one question ultimately to be asked respecting every line you draw, Is it right or wrong? If right, it most assuredly is not a "free" line, but an intensely continent, restrained and considered line; and the action of the hand in laying it is just as decisive, and just as "free" as the hand of a first-rate surgeon in a critical incision.

God will put up with a great many things in the human heart, but there is one thing that He will not put up with in it--a second place. He who offers God a second place, offers Him no place.

Death is not a journey into an unknown land; it is a voyage home. We are going, not to a strange country, but to our fathers house.

God alone can finish.

Expression, sentiment, truth to nature, are essential: but all those are not enough. I never care to look at a picture again, if it be ill composed; and if well composed I can hardly leave off looking at it.

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.