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I believe that there is no test of greatness in periods, nations or men more sure than the development, among them or in them, of a noble grotesque, and no test of comparative smallness or limitation, of one kind or another, more sure than the absence of grotesque invention, or incapability of understanding it.

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
Sure
Invention
Nations
Absence
Understanding
Tests
Incapability
Noble
Comparative
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Greatness
Smallness
Kind
Periods
Grotesque
Believe
Among
Limitation
Men
Development
Test

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No one can become rich by the efforts of only their toil, but only by the discovery of some method of taxing the labor of others.
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The first condition of education is being able to put someone to wholesome and meaningful work.
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He who can take no interest in what is small will take false interest in what is great.
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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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Many thoughts are so dependent upon the language in which they are clothed that they would lose half their beauty if otherwise expressed.
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Nothing can be beautiful which is not true.
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We are only advancing in life, whose hearts are getting softer, our blood warmer, our brains quicker, and our spirits entering into living peace.
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In mortals there is a care for trifles which proceeds from love and conscience, and is most holy and a care for trifles which comes of idleness and frivolity, and is most base. And so, also, there is a gravity proceeding from thought, which is most noble and a gravity proceeding from dulness and mere incapability of enjoyment, which is most base.
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... Amongst all the mechanical poison that this terrible nineteenth century has poured upon men, it has given us at any rate one antidote - the Daguerreotype. (1845)
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It is his restraint that is honorable to a person, not their liberty.
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Whether we force the man's property from him by pinching his stomach, or pinching his fingers, makes some difference anatomically morally, none whatsoever.
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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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Nothing can be true which is either complete or vacant every touch is false which does not suggest more than it represents, and every space is false which represents nothing.
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He who is not actively kind is cruel!
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What we think or what we know or what we believe is in the end of little consequence. The only thing of consequence is what we do
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You will find that the mere resolve not to be useless, and the honest desire to help other people, will, in the quickest and delicatest ways, improve yourself.
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The higher a man stands, the more the word vulgar becomes unintelligible to him.
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Depend upon it, the first universal characteristic of all great art is Tenderness, as the second is Truth.
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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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The essence of lying is in deception, not in words.
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