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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.

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
Mystery
Gleam
Every
Strange
Fellowship
Life
Humanity
Flash
Animal
Creature
Eye
Command
Light
Claims
Soul
Image
Looks
Creatures

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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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He who is not actively kind is cruel!
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A nation which lives a pastoral and innocent life never decorates the shepherd's staff or the plough-handle but races who live by depredation and slaughter nearly always bestow exquisite ornaments on the quiver, the helmet, and the spear.
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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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If only the Geologists would let me alone, I could do very well, but those dreadful Hammers! I hear the clink of them at the end of every cadence of the Bible verses.
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The very cheapness of literature is making even wise people forget that if a book is worth reading, it is worth buying. No book is worth anything which is not worth much nor is it serviceable, until it has been read, and re-read, and loved, and loved again and marked, so that you can refer to the passages you want in it.
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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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They are the weakest-minded and the hardest-hearted men that most love change.
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I will not kill or hurt any living creature needlessly, nor destroy any beautiful thing, but will strive to save and comfort all gentle life, and guard and perfect all natural beauty upon the earth.
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The principle of all successful effort is to try to do not what is absolutely the best, but what is easily within our power, and suited for our temperament and condition.
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Science deals exclusively with things as they are in themselves and art exclusively with things as they affect the human sense and human soul.
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The man who can see all gray, and red, and purples in a peach, will paint the peach rightly round, and rightly altogether. But the man who has only studied its roundness may not see its purples and grays, and if he does not will never get it to look like a peach so that great power over color is always a sign of large general art-intellect.
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No human being, however great, or powerful, was ever so free as a fish.
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In old times men used their powers of painting to show the objects of faith, in later times they use the objects of faith to show their powers of painting.
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Wherever men are noble, they love bright colour and wherever they can live healthily, bright colour is given them—in sky, sea, flowers, and living creatures.
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I cannot but think it an evil sign of a people when their houses are built to last for one generation only.
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It is not, truly speaking, the labour that is divided but the men: divided into mere segments of men - broken into small fragments and crumbs of life, so that all the little piece of intelligence that is left in a man is not enough to make a pin, or a nail, but exhausts itself in making the point of a pin or the head of a nail.
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Do not think it wasted time to submit yourselves to any influence which may bring upon you any noble feeling.
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It is not how much one makes but to what purpose one spends.
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... the weakest among us has a gift, however seemingly trivial, which is peculiar to him, and which, worthily used, will be a gift also to his race forever.
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