John Ruskin Quotes

I like to be surrounded by splendid things.

Beauty is nature's brag, and must be shown in courts, at feasts, and high solemnities, where most may wonder at the workmanship.

Rich men's houses are seldom beautiful, rarely comfortable, and never original. It is a constant source of surprise to people of moderate means to observe how little a big fortune contributes to Beauty.

Beauty is everywhere a welcome guest.

Chandeliers are marvels of drop-dead showiness, the jewellery of architecture.

Teach us that wealth is not elegance, that profusion is not magnificence, that splendor is not beauty.

To me, the world's rather beautiful if you look at it. Especially nature.

I wear myself out and struggle with the sun. And what a sun here! It would be necessary to paint here with gold and gemstones. It is wonderful.

'Flower' is about the sublime.

The difference between utility and utility plus beauty is the difference between telephone wires and the spider web.

I don't think estates are grim places.

Grandeur and beauty are so very opposite, that you often diminish the one as you increase the other. Variety is most akin to the latter, simplicity to the former.

I know no subject more elevating, more amazing, more ready to the poetical enthusiasm, the philosophical reflection, and the moral sentiment than the works of nature. Where can we meet such variety, such beauty, such magnificence?

I hate the idea of natural. For example, I prefer gardens to wild nature. I like to see the human touch. High heels are a complete invention - an extravagance. They're far from natural, but it's the impracticality that I adore. I prefer the useless to the useful, the sophisticated to the natural.

How does a person feel when looking at the sky? He thinks that he doesn't have enough tongues to describe what he sees. Nevertheless, people have never stopping describing the sky, simply listing what they see.

I've been to parties in L.A. that are mind-blowing. I mean, quite literally mind-blowing. People get cellphones in the party bag, that sort of thing. Fabulous, fabulous parties.

Beauty is that which is simultaneously attractive and sublime.

The sky is the part of creation in which nature has done for the sake of pleasing man.

Why have one chandelier when you can have two?

Tis distance lends enchantment to the view, and robes the mountain in its azure hue.

Beauty is the oracle that speaks to us all.

I have no particular interest in antiquities or antiques, but I like things to meet a certain aesthetic.

I think beauty can be everywhere.

I love everything that's beautiful. A lot of things.

The product of extraordinary wealth allied to a taste for the sumptuous.