John Ruskin Quotes

A nation is a work of art and a work of time.

Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts - the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art.

Queen Victoria did not regard art, letters, or music as in any way springing from national character: they were something quite apart, elegant decorations resembling a scarf or a bracelet, and in no way expressive of the soul of the country.

Every country gets the circus it deserves. Spain gets bullfights. Italy the Church. America Hollywood.

In general it can be said that a nation's art is greatest when it most reflects the character of its people.

The art of a people is a true mirror to their minds.

National identity does not figure in the Tamil way of thinking.

American art ought to be monumental, in keeping with American life.

A country cannot develop without a strong identity.

We infer the spirit of the nation in great measure from the language, which is a sort of monument, to which each forcible individual in a course of many hundred years has contributed a stone.

Art is how a culture records its life, how it poses questions for the next generation and how it will be remembered.

There is a heavy Mexican Catholic streak in my movies, and a huge Mexican sense of melodrama. Everything is overwrought, and there's a sense of acceptance of the fantastic in my films, which is innately Mexican. So when people ask, 'How can you define the Mexican-ness of your films?' I go, 'How can I not?' It's all I am.

Without art, you don't have society. It underpins so much.

'Authentic' is one of my least favourite words because in such a diverse country, whose authenticity are you talking about?

Art in America should be American, drawn from American sources, memorializing American achievement.

Philosophy and the arts are but a manifestation of the intelligible ideas that move the public mind; and thus they become visible images of the nations whence they emanate.

Nationality is the aggregated individuality of the greatest men of the nation.

Nothing reveals more about the inner life of a people than their arts.

O thou who art able to write a Book, which once in the two centuries or oftener there is a man gifted to do, envy not him whom they name City-builder, and inexpressibly pity him whom they name Conqueror or City-burner! Thou too art a Conqueror and Victor; but of the true sort, namely over the Devil: thou too hast built what will outlast all marble and metal, and be a wonder-bringing City of the Mind, a Temple and Seminary and Prophetic Mount, whereto all kindreds of the Earth will pilgrim.

I think of art as a glue, a cultural and social glue. It's one of the means that has served to show us the things we believe in and the things we celebrate; it has served to reinforce our relationship to each other.

I don't think I'm essentially interested in children's books. I'm interested in writing, and in pictures. I'm interested in people and in children because they are people.

Art in the art world, and culture in general, are branches of the media, which produces our political and social thinking climate.

When we teach a child to sing or play the flute, we teach her how to listen. When we teach her to draw, we teach her to see. When we teach a child to dance, we teach him about his body and about space, and when he acts on a stage, he learns about character and motivation. When we teach a child design, we reveal the geometry of the world. When we teach children about the folk and traditional arts and the great masterpieces of the world, we teach them to celebrate their roots and find their own place in history.

The German mind, may it live! Almost invisible as a mind, it finally manifests itself assertively as a conviction.

The American dream has always depended on the dialogue between the present and the past. In our architecture, as in all our other arts-indeed, as in our political and social culture as a whole-ours has been a struggle to formulate and sustain a usable past.