John Ruskin Quotes

Morals and criticism are not so properly objects of the understanding as of taste and sentiment.

The rules of morality are not the conclusion of our reason.

Taste is the only morality. Tell me what you like and I'll tell you what you are.

The order of nature [is] that individual happiness shall be inseparable from the practice of virtue.

If Truth is taken away from us, then Right and Wrong are taken from us as well. If we don't know Right and Wrong, then we can't, we won't control ourselves, but will look to someone else to bring order through brute force and raw power. We will be controlled by a tyrant, and we will no longer be free.

Inability to tell good from evil is the greatest worry of man's life.

Temptations make one very censorious. If you are virtuous you condemn the wicked and if you are wicked, you condemn the virtuous.

Good and bad are really arbitrary words when it comes to character.

There is really no right and wrong. I recognize no right and wrong.

I think homes should reflect the individuals and their individual taste rather than someone else's.

One has only as much morality as one has philosophy and poetry.

There is no right in acting.

Morality is the custom of one's country and the current feeling of one's peers.

A man is not good or bad for one action.

Good taste doesn't exist. It is our taste. We have to be proud of it.

Ethics are not necessarily to do with being law-abiding. I am very interested in the moral path, doing the right thing.

There is but one right, and the possibilities of wrong are infinite.

Action indeed is the sole medium of expression for ethics.

People's character is their behaviour - we're all capable of good and evil.

The ethic of conviction and the ethic of responsibility are not opposites. They are complementary to one another.

The fundamental basis of ethics must be chosen in some non-scientific way.

A man's conscience and his judgment is the same thing, and, as the judgment, so also the conscience may be erroneous.

That which is morally wrong will never be politically right.

I've never met an evil person ever.

The virtues and vices are all put in motion by interest.