Authors
Topics
Lists
Pictures
Resources
More about John Ruskin
John Ruskin -
Nature
Quotes
32 Sourced Quotes
View all John Ruskin Quotes
Source
Report...
This rock [marble], then, is prepared by Nature for the sculptor and architect, just as paper is prepared by the manufacturer for the artist, with as great - nay, with greater - care, and more perfect adaptation of the material to the requirements.
John Ruskin
Source
Report...
All really great pictures exhibit the general habits of nature, manifested in some peculiar, rare, and beautiful way.
John Ruskin
Source
Report...
The finer the nature, the more flaws it will show through the clearness of it; and it is a law of this universe that the best things shall be seldomest seen in their best form.
John Ruskin
Source
Report...
Science and art are commonly distinguished by the nature of their actions; the one as knowing, the other as changing, producing, or creating.
John Ruskin
Source
Report...
Of all inorganic substances, acting in their own propel nature, and without assistance or combination, water is the most wonderful.
John Ruskin
Source
Report...
There is no climate, no place, and scarcely an hour, in which nature does not exhibit color which no mortal effort can imitate or approach. For all our artificial pigments are, even when seen under the same circumstances, dead and lightless beside her living color; nature exhibits her hues under an intensity of sunlight which trebles their brilliancy.
John Ruskin
Source
Report...
In the utmost solitudes of nature, the existence of hell seems to me as legibly declared by a thousand spiritual utterances as that of heaven.
John Ruskin
Source
Report...
Our purity of taste is best tested by its universality, for if we can only admire this thing or that, we maybe use that our cause for liking is of a finite and false nature.
John Ruskin
Source
Report...
A gentleman's first characteristic is that fineness of structure in the body which renders it capable of the most delicate sensation; and of structure in the mind which renders it capable of the most delicate sympathies; one may say simply "fineness of nature.
John Ruskin
Source
Report...
The material which Nature furnishes, in any given country, and the form which she suggests, will always render the building the most beautiful...
John Ruskin
Source
Report...
The sculptor does not work for the anatomist, but for the common observer of life and nature.
John Ruskin
Source
Report...
I would rather teach drawing that my pupils may learn to love nature, than teach the looking at nature that they may learn to draw.
John Ruskin
Source
Report...
I do not mean to call an elephant a vulgar animal, but if you think about him carefully, you will find that his nonvulgarity consists in such gentleness as is possible to elephantine nature-not in his insensitive hide, nor in his clumsy foot, but in the way he will lift his foot if a child lies in his way; and in his sensitive trunk, and still more sensitive mind, and capability of pique on points of honor.
John Ruskin
Source
Report...
Of all the things that oppress me, this sense of the evil working of nature herself -my disgust at her barbarity -clumsiness -darkness -bitter mockery of herself -is the most desolating.
John Ruskin
Source
Report...
You cannot get anything out of nature or from God by gambling; only out of your neighbor.
John Ruskin
Source
Report...
Nature is never distinct and never vacant, she is always mysterious, but always abundant; you always see something, but you never see all.
John Ruskin
Source
Report...
The truth of Nature is a part of the truth of God; to him who does not search it out, darkness; to him who does, infinity.
John Ruskin
Source
Report...
High art consists neither in altering, nor in improving nature; but in seeking throughout nature for 'whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are pure;' in loving these, in displaying to the utmost of the painter's power such loveliness as is in them, and directing the thoughts of others to them by winning art, or gentle emphasis.
John Ruskin
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
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.
John Ruskin
Source
Report...
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.
John Ruskin
Source
Report...
The truths of nature are one eternal change, one infinite variety. There is no bush on the face of the globe exactly like another bush; there are no two trees in the forest whose boughs bend into the same network, nor two leaves on the same tree which could not be told one from the other, nor two waves in the sea exactly alike.
John Ruskin
Source
Report...
Nature is always mysterious and secret in her use of means; and art is always likest her when it is most inexplicable.
John Ruskin
Source
Report...
In general, when the imagination is at all noble, it is irresistible, and therefore those who can at all resist it ought to resist it. Be a plain topographer if you possibly can; if Nature meant you to be anything else, she will force you to it; but never try to be a prophet.
John Ruskin
Source
Report...
Though nature is constantly beautiful, she does not exhibit her highest powers of beauty constantly, for then they would satiate us and pall upon our senses. It is necessary to their appreciation that they should be rarely shown. Her finest touches are things which must be watched for; her most perfect passages of beauty are the most evanescent.
John Ruskin
1
2
Quote of the day
At last, in 1611, was made, under the auspices of King James, the famous King James version; and this is the great literary monument of the English language.
Lafcadio Hearn
John Ruskin
Creative Commons
Born:
February 8, 1819
Died:
January 20, 1900
(aged 80)
More about John Ruskin...
Featured Authors
Lists
Predictions that didn't happen
If it's on the Internet it must be true
Remarkable Last Words (or Near-Last Words)
Picture Quotes
Confucius
Philip James Bailey
Eleanor Roosevelt
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Popular Topics
life
love
nature
time
god
power
human
mind
work
art
heart
thought
men
day
×
Lib Quotes