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In great countries, children are always trying to remain children, and the parents want to make them into adults. In vile countries, the children are always wanting to be adults and the parents want to keep them children.

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
Great
Countries
Trying
Remain
Make
Adults
Always
Parents
Parent
Keep
Country
Vile
Children
Wanting

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Obedience is, indeed, founded on a kind of freedom, else it would become mere subjugation, but that freedom is only granted that obedience may be more perfect and thus while a measure of license is necessary to exhibit the individual energies of things, the fairness and pleasantness and perfection of them all consist in their restraint.
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In order that a man may be happy, it is necessary that he should not only be capable of his work, but a good judge of his work.
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You cannot have good architecture merely by asking people's advice on occasion. All good architecture is the expression of national life and character and it is produced by a prevalent and eager national taste, or desire for beauty.
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The first duty of government is to see that people have food, fuel, and clothes. The second, that they have means of moral and intellectual education.
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The infinity of God is not mysterious, it is only unfathomable not concealed, but incomprehensible it is a clear infinity, the darkness of the pure unsearchable sea.
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A man is born an artist as a hippopotamus is born a hippopotamus and you can no more make yourself one than you can make yourself a giraffe.
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Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery.
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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.
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Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.
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Greatness is not a teachable nor gainable thing, but the expression of the mind of a God-made great man.
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Architecture concerns itself only with those characters of an edifice which are above and beyond its common use.
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That which is required in order to the attainment of accurate conclusions respecting the essence of the Beautiful is nothing morethan earnest, loving, and unselfish attention to our impressions of it.
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There's no music in rest, but there's the making of music in it. And people are always missing that part of the life melody, always talking of perseverance and courage and fortitude but patience is the finest and worthiest part of fortitude, and the rarest, too.
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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.
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Disorder in a drawing-room is vulgar in an antiquary's study, not the black battle-stain on a soldier's face is not vulgar, but the dirty face of a housemaid is.
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A forest of all manner of trees is poor, if not disagreeable, in effect a mass of one species of tree is sublime.
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The only way to understand these difficult parts of the Bible, or even to approach them with safety, is first to read and obey the easy ones.
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Work first, and then rest.
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It is excellent discipline for an author to feel that he must say all that he has to say in the fewest possible words, or his readers is sure to skip them.
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I do not believe that any peacock envies another peacock his tail, because every peacock is persuaded that his own tail is the finest in the world. The consequence of this is that peacocks are peaceable birds.
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