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There is never vulgarity in a whole truth, however commonplace. It may be unimportant or painful. It cannot be vulgar. Vulgarity is only in concealment of truth, or in affectation.

John Ruskin

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John Ruskin
Age: 80 †
Born: 1819
Born: February 8
Died: 1900
Died: January 20
Aesthetician
Architect
Art Critic
Art Historian
Journalist
Literary Critic
Painter
Philosopher
Poet
Sociologist
University Teacher
Writer
London
England
Kata Phusin
Rŏsŭkʻin
J. Ruskin
John Rosukin
Jon Rasukin
Dzhon Rëskin
Ruskin
Cannot
Concealment
Truth
Vulgarity
May
Unimportant
Whole
Commonplace
Never
Vulgar
Painful
However
Pain
Affectation

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There is a working class - strong and happy - among both rich and poor: there is an idle class - weak, wicked, and miserable - among both rich and poor.
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The first test of a truly great man is his humility. By humility I don't mean doubt of his powers or hesitation in speaking his opinion, but merely an understanding of the relationship of what he can say and what he can do.
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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.
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Give me some mud off a city crossing, some ochre out of a gravel pit and a little whitening and some coal dust and I will paint you a luminous picture if you give me time to gradate my mud and subdue my dust.
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Ship of the line is the most honourable thing that man, as a gregarious animal, has ever produced.
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Some slaves are scoured to their work by whips, others by their restlessness and ambition.
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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.
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In all things that live there are certain irregularities, and deficiencies which are not only signs of life, but sources of beauty. No human face is exactly the same in its lines on each side, no leaf perfect in its lobes, no branch in its symmetry.
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Freedom is only granted us that obedience may be more perfect.
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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.
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He who has truth at his heart need never fear the want of persuasion on his tongue.
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Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless peacocks and lilies for instance.
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Government and cooperation are in all things the laws of life. Anarchy and competition, the laws of death.
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All great song, from the first day when human lips contrived syllables, has been sincere song.
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Like other beautiful things in this world, its end (that of a shaft) is to be beautiful and, in proportion to its beauty, it receives permission to be otherwise useless. We do not blame emeralds and rubies because we cannot make them into heads of hammers.
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Nature is painting for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty.
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Every good piece of art... involves first essentially the evidence of human skill, and the formation of an actually beautiful thing by it.
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I wish they would use English instead of Greek words. When I want to know why a leaf is green, they tell me it is coloured by chlorophyll, which at first sounds very instructive but if they would only say plainly that a leaf is coloured green by a thing which is called green leaf, we should see more precisely how far we had got.
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Levi's station in life was the receipt of custom and Peter's, the shore of Galilee and Paul's, the antechambers of the High- Priest, which station in life each had to leave, with brief notice.
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