More from and about
John Ruskin
(biographical info at bottom of page)

  

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up,
snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather,
only different kinds of good weather.

   

I believe that the first test of a truly great person is his or her humility.  I do not mean by humility, doubt of his or her own powers.  But really great people have a curious feeling that the greatness is not in them, but through them.  And they see something divine in every other person.

      
No changing of place at a hundred miles an hour will make us one whit stronger, or happier, or wiser. There was always more in the world than we could see, walked we ever so slowly; we will see it no better for going fast. The really precious things are thought and sight, not pace.  It does a bullet no good to go fast; and a person, if he or she be truly a man or woman, no harm to go slow; for our glory is not at all in going, but in being.
  
You will find it less easy to unroot faults than to choke them by gaining virtues. Do not think of your faults, still less of others faults; in every person who comes near you look for what is good and strong; honor that; rejoice in it and as you can, try to imitate it; and your faults will drop off like dead leaves when their time comes.
  
  
To be taught to read—what is the use of that, if you know not whether what you read is false or true? To be taught to write or to speak—but what is the use of speaking, if you have nothing to say? To be taught to think—nay, what is the use of being able to think, if you have nothing to think of? But to be taught to see is to gain word and thought at once, and both true.
  
  
Imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know in life.
   

The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion, all in one.

     

You can only possess beauty through understanding it.

   

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Education does not mean teaching people what they do not know.
It means teaching them to behave as they do not behave.

   

The highest reward for a person’s toil is not
what they get for it, but what they become by it.

   

What we think or what we know or what we believe
is in the end of little consequence. The only thing
of consequence is what we do.

   

    
John Ruskin was born in London on 8 February 1819. He was one of the greatest figures of the Victorian age, poet, artist, critic, social revolutionary and conservationist.

Ruskin made his first visit to Keswick in 1824, when he was 5 years old, and the memorial erected at Friars Crag after his death by the efforts of Canon Rawnsley, reminds us that 'the first thing I remember as an event in life was being taken by my nurse to the brow of Friar's Crag on Derwentwater'. That first view of Friar's Crag made a deep impression on the five year old boy, and years later he described the incident as 'the creation of the world for me'. After a brief stay in Keswick in 1826, the family came for a three week holiday in the Lakes in 1830. After a trip from Windermere to Hawkshead and Coniston, he wrote is experiences in Iteriad, a poem of 2310 lines which were highly competent for a boy of 11.

Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris met whilst at Oxford taking Holy Orders. Here they gained inspiration from the writings of John Ruskin, and decided they wanted to become artists. Ruskin saw the work of Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood as 'the dawn of a new era of art', and Burne-Jones went to London to seek out Rossetti. Ruskin became a great friend of Rossetti, Burne-Jones and Millais (who later married Ruskin's wife Effie), and was an eminent artist himself.

Ruskin was appointed Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford University in 1869, and it was here that he met Hardwicke Rawnsley who was studying at Balliol College. This was to be the start of a lifelong friendship. In 1875, whilst working in London, Ruskin introduced Rawnsley to his friend Octavia Hill, a social reformer. Rawnsley and Hill were two of the founders in 1896 of the National Trust, whose origins can be traced back to Ruskin's influence. Ruskin took up the cause of conservation with much passion and vigor, and many of the issues on which he campaigned are still valid today - town and country planning, green belts and smokeless zones. He also campaigned for free schools and libraries.

In 1881 he introduced the ceremony of children dancing round a maypole with ribbons.

He returned to Keswick several more times including 1867 by which time he was a nationally revered and distinguished public figure. His affection for the Lakes was undiminished, for four years later in 1871, when he was 52 he bought Brantwood, near Coniston, when he learnt that W.J. Linton, the wood-engraver and revolutionary, wished to sell it. He was visited at Brantwood by many eminent Victorians, including Charles Darwin, Holman Hunt, Kate Greenaway and Henry Holiday.

In 1877 he inspired William Morris to found the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings.

Ruskin died at Brantwood of influenza on 20 Jan 1900, and is buried in the churchyard of St Andrew's Church in Coniston. His grave is marked with a large carved cross made from green slate from the local quarry at Tilberthwaite. It was designed by W.G. Collingwood, who was an expert on Anglo-Saxon crosses, with symbols depicting important aspects of Ruskin's work and life. A year later W.G. Collingwood worked to set up an exhibition, now called the Ruskin Museum, at the back of the Coniston Mechanics Institute, as a place to preserve any Ruskin mementoes that could be found. In 1901 the building was opened by Canon Rawnsley, and now gets almost as many visitors as Brantwood itself.
  

    

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Other people:  Alan Watts - Albert Einstein - Albert Schweitzer - Andy Rooney - Anne Frank - Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Anne Wilson Schaef
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Benjamin Franklin
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Charlotte Davis Kasl
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Don Miguel Ruiz
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Emmet Fox
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Harold Kushner
- Harry Emerson Fosdick - Helen Keller - Henry David Thoreau - Henry James - Henry Van Dyke
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- Henry Ward Beecher - Hugh Prather - Immanuel Kant - Iyanla Vanzant - Jack Canfield
James Allen
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John Ruskin
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Leo Buscaglia
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Norman Vincent Peale
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Rabindranath Tagore
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Richard Carlson
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Shakti Gawain
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Sylvia Boorstein
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Wayne Dyer
- Wilferd A. Peterson - Willa Cather - William James - William Wordsworth - Zig Ziglar

  

       
    

Yes, life can be mysterious and confusing--but there's much of life that's actually rather dependable and reliable.  Some principles apply to life in so many different contexts that they can truly be called universal--and learning what they are and how to approach them and use them can teach us some of the most important lessons that we've ever learned.
My doctorate is in Teaching and Learning.  I use it a lot when I teach at school, but I also do my best to apply what I've learned to the life I'm living, and to observe how others live their lives.  What makes them happy or unhappy, stressed or peaceful, selfish or generous, compassionate or arrogant?  In this book, I've done my best to pass on to you what I've learned from people in my life, writers whose works I've read, and stories that I've heard.  Perhaps these principles can be a positive part of your life, too!
Universal Principles of Living Life Fully.  Awareness of these principles can explain a lot and take much of the frustration out of the lives we lead.