The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it. - John Ruskin
The first duty of a state is to see that every child born therein shall be well housed, clothed, fed and educated till it attains years of discretion. - John Ruskin
No person who is not a great sculptor or painter can be an architect. If he is not a sculptor or painter, he can only be a builder. - John Ruskin
How long most people would look at the best book before they would give the price of a large turbot for it? - John Ruskin
It seems a fantastic paradox, but it is nevertheless a most important truth, that no architecture can be truly noble which is not imperfect. - John Ruskin
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. - John Ruskin
A little thought and a little kindness are often worth more than a great deal of money. - John Ruskin
All great art is the work of the whole living creature, body and soul, and chiefly of the soul. - John Ruskin
Let every dawn be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close. - John Ruskin
Education is the leading of human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them. - John Ruskin
What do we, as a nation, care about books? How much do you think we spend altogether on our libraries, public or private, as compared with what we spend on our horses? - John Ruskin
An architect should live as little in cities as a painter. Send him to our hills, and let him study there what nature understands by a buttress, and what by a dome. - John Ruskin
Man's only true happiness is to live in hope of something to be won by him. Reverence something to be worshipped by him, and love something to be cherished by him, forever. - John Ruskin
All that we call ideal in Greek or any other art, because to us it is false and visionary, was, to the makers of it, true and existent. - John Ruskin
There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey. - John Ruskin
That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings. - John Ruskin
There is never vulgarity in a whole truth, however commonplace. It may be unimportant or painful. It cannot be vulgar. Vulgarity is only in concealment of truth, or in affectation. - John Ruskin