Beauty deprived of its proper foils and adjuncts ceases to be enjoyed as beauty, just as light deprived of all shadows ceases to be enjoyed as light. – John Ruskin
You might sooner get lightning out of incense smoke than true action or passion out of your modern English religion. – John Ruskin
Every great person is always being helped by everybody; for their gift is to get good out of all things and all persons. – John Ruskin
The strength and power of a country depends absolutely on the quantity of good men and women in it. – John Ruskin
The first condition of education is being able to put someone to wholesome and meaningful work. – John Ruskin
All great and beautiful work has come of first gazing without shrinking into the darkness. – John Ruskin
The work of science is to substitute facts for appearances, and demonstrations for impressions. – John Ruskin
Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance. – John Ruskin
That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings. – John Ruskin
Nothing is ever done beautifully which is done in rivalship: or nobly, which is done in pride. – John Ruskin
Men cannot not live by exchanging articles, but producing them. They live by work not trade. – John Ruskin
It is in this power of saying everything, and yet saying nothing too plainly, that the perfection of art consists. – John Ruskin
What do we, as a nation, care about books? How much do you think we spend altogether on our libraries, public or private, as compared with what we spend on our horses? – John Ruskin
An architect should live as little in cities as a painter. Send him to our hills, and let him study there what nature understands by a buttress, and what by a dome. – John Ruskin
Modern education has devoted itself to the teaching of impudence, and then we complain that we can no longer control our mobs. – John Ruskin
There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man’s lawful prey. – John Ruskin