John Ruskin

Every increased possession loads us with new weariness.

There is no wealth but life.

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

You will find that the mere resolve not to be useless, and the honest desire to help other people, will, in the quickest and delicatest ways, improve yourself.

When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.

...in order that a man may be happy, it is necessary that he should not only be capable of his work, but a good judge of his work.

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.
John Ruskin - The Seven Lamps of Architecture, 1849
Of all the pulpits from which human voice is ever sent forth, there is none from which it reaches so far as from the grave.

Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of intelligent effort.

Education is the leading of human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them.
John Ruskin - Pre-Raphaelitism, 1850
In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: They must be fit for it. They must not do too much of it. And they must have a sense of success in it.

This is the true nature of home -- it is the place of Peace; the shelter, not only from injury, but from all terror, doubt and division.

Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them.

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

- John Ruskin