John Ruskin

Children see in their parents the past, their parents see in them the future; and if we find more love in the parents for their children than in children for their parents, this is sad but natural. Who does not entertain his hopes more than his recollections.

Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives, the cumulative experience of many masters of craftsmanship. Quality also marks the search for an ideal after necessity has been satisfied and mere usefulness achieved.

It takes a great deal of living to get a little deal of learning.

He who can take no interest in what is small will take false interest in what is great.

Men are more evanescent than pictures, yet one sorrows for lost friends, and pictures are my friends. I have none others. I am never long enough with men to attach myself to them; and whatever feelings of attachment I have are to material things.

One evening, when I was yet in my nurse's arms, I wanted to touch the tea urn, which was boiling merrily ... My nurse would have taken me away from the urn, but my mother said "Let him touch it." So I touched it - and that was my first lesson in the meaning of liberty.

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.

Life without industry is guilt, and industry without art is brutality.

Your honesty is not to be based either on religion or policy. Both your religion and policy must be based on it. Your honesty must be based, as the sun is, in vacant heaven; poised, as the lights in the firmament, which have rule over the day and over the night.

Your labor only may be sold, your soul must not.

There is nothing so great or so goodly in creation, but that it is a mean symbol of the gospel of Christ, and of the things He has prepared for them that love Him.

A thing is worth what it can do for you, not what you choose to pay for it.

If the design of the building be originally bad, the only virtue it can ever possess will be signs of antiquity.

There is material enough in a single flower for the ornament of a score of cathedrals.

What right have you to take the word wealth, which originally meant well-being, and degrade and narrow it by confining it to certain sorts of material objects measured by money.

One of the prevailing sources of misery and crime is in the generally accepted assumption, that because things have been wrong a long time, it is impossible they will ever be right.

The secret of language is the secret of sympathy, and its full charm is possible only to the gentle

Trust thou thy Love: if she be proud, is she not sweet?_x000D_ _x000D_ Trust thou thy love: if she be mute, is she not pure?_x000D_ _x000D_ Lay thou thy soul full in her hands, low at her feet-_x000D_ _x000D_ Fail, Sun and Breath!-yet, for thy peace, she shall endure.

When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for our use alone. Let it be such work as our descendants will look upon with praise and thanksgiving in their hearts.

God intends no man to live in this world without working, but it seems to me no less evident that He intends every man to be happy in his work.

When we build ... let it not be for present delights nor for present use alone. Let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for, and let us think ... that a time is to come when these stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say as they look upon the labor, and the wrought substance of them, See! This our fathers did for us!