Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Cause
Universality
Causes
Liking
Maybe
Finite
Use
Tested
Nature
Purity
Best
Admire
Thing
False
Taste

More quotes by John Ruskin

Image
Imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know in life.
John Ruskin
Image
No art can be noble which is incapable of expressing thought, and no art is capable of expressing thought which does not change.
John Ruskin
Image
Of all the pulpits from which human voice is ever sent forth, there is none from which it reaches so far as from the grave.
John Ruskin
Image
I believe that the first test of a great man is his humility. I don't mean by humility, doubt of his power. But really great men have a curious feeling that the greatness is not of them, but through them. And they see something divine in every other man and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful.
John Ruskin
Image
We have seen when the earth had to be prepared for the habitation of man, a veil, as it were, of intermediate being was spread between him and its darkness, in which were joined in a subdued measure, the stability and insensibility of the earth, and the passion and perishing of mankind.
John Ruskin
Image
It is a strange thing how little in general people know about the sky. It is the part of creation in which nature has done more for the sake of pleasing man.
John Ruskin
Image
My mother's influence in molding my character was conspicuous. She forced me to learn daily long chapters of the Bible by heart. To that discipline and patient, accurate resolve I owe not only much of my general power of taking pains, but of the best part of my taste for literature.
John Ruskin
Image
To banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality.
John Ruskin
Image
Never has interest in art been so high, and never has quality been so low.
John Ruskin
Image
Life is a magic vase filled to the brim, so made that you cannot dip from it nor draw from it but it overflows into the hand that drops treasures into it. Drop in malice and it overflows hate drop in charity and it overflows love.
John Ruskin
Image
Every great man is always being helped by everybody, for his gift is to get good out of all things and all persons.
John Ruskin
Image
You may either win your peace or buy it: win it, by resistance to evil buy it, by compromise with evil.
John Ruskin
Image
There is material enough in a single flower for the ornament of a score of cathedrals.
John Ruskin
Image
What do you suppose makes all men look back to the time of childhood with so much regret (if their childhood has been, in any moderate degree, healthy or peaceful)? That rich charm, which the least possession had for us, was in consequence of the poorness of our treasures.
John Ruskin
Image
Perfect taste is the faculty of receiving the greatest possible pleasure from those material sources which are attractive to oar moral nature in its purity and perfection.
John Ruskin
Image
We may live without her, and worship without her, but we cannot remember without her. How cold is all history, how lifeless all imagery, compared to that which the living nation writes, and the uncorrupted marble bears!
John Ruskin
Image
... 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.
John Ruskin
Image
The actual flower is the plant's highest fulfilment, and are not here exclusively for herbaria, county floras and plant geography: they are here first of all for delight.
John Ruskin
Image
We must note carefully what distinction there is between a healthy and a diseased love of change for as it was in healthy love of change that the Gothic architecture rose, it was partly in consequence of diseased love of change that it was destroyed.
John Ruskin
Image
Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless peacocks and lilies for instance.
John Ruskin