770 Quotes by John Ruskin

Let us then understand at once that change or variety is as much a necessity to the human heart and brain in buildings as in books; that there is no merit, though there is some occasional use, in monotony; and that we must no more expect to derive either pleasure or profit from an architecture whose ornaments are of one pattern, and whose pillars are of one proportion, than we should of a universe in which the clouds were all of one shape, and the trees all of one shape.

Let every dawn of morning be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close.

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

To be able to ask a question clearly is two-thirds of the way to getting it answered.

Shakespeare has no heroes. He only has heroines.

The art of nations is to be accumulative, just as science and history are; the work of living men not superseding, but building itself upon the work of the past.

All books are divisible into two classes, the books of the hour, and the books of all time.

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.

To cultivate sympathy you must be among living creatures, and thinking about them; and to cultivate admiration, you must be among beautiful things and looking at them.