The art of drawing which is of more real importance to the human race than that of writing...should be taught to every child just as writing is.
John RuskinNo false knight or lying priest ever prospered, I believe, in any age, but certainly not in the dark ones. Men prospered then, only in following openly-declared purposes , and preaching candidly beloved and trusted creeds.
John RuskinNatural abilities can almost compensate for the want of every kind of cultivation, but no cultivation of the mind can make up for the want of natural abilities.
John RuskinIt is excellent discipline for an author to feel that he must say all he has to say in the fewest possible words, or his reader is sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words, or his reader will certainly misunderstand them. Generally, also, a downright fact may be told in a plain way; and we want downright facts at present more than anything else.
John RuskinAll are to be men of genius in their degree,--rivulets or rivers, it does not matter, so that the souls be clear and pure; not dead walls encompassing dead heaps of things, known and numbered, but running waters in the sweet wilderness of things unnumbered and unknown, conscious only of the living banks, on which they partly refresh and partly reflect the flowers, and so pass on.
John Ruskin