John Ruskin quotes for UPSC

Your honesty is not to be based either on religion or policy. Both your religion and policy must be based on it. Your honesty must be based, as the sun is, in vacant heaven; poised, as the lights in the firmament, which have rule over the day and over the night.

In general, pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes.

The greatest minds are marked by nothing more distinctly than an inconceivable humility, and acceptance of work or instruction in any form, and from any quarter. They will learn from everybody, and do anything that anybody asks, so long as it involves only toil, or what other men would think degradation.

Without perfect sympathy with the animals around them, no gentleman's education, no Christian education, could be of any possible use.

The water which has been refused to the cry of the weary and dying is unholy, though it had been blessed by every saint in heaven; and the water which is found in the vessel of mercy is holy, though it had been defiled with corpses.

He only is advancing in life whose heart is getting softer, whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is entering into Living peace. And the men who have this life in them are the true lords or kings of the earth — they, and they only.

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.

The first duty of a state is to see that every child born therein shall be well housed, clothed, fed, and educated, till it attains years of discretion.

You may either win your peace, or buy it:—win it, by resistance to evil;—buy it, by compromise with evil.

In painting as in eloquence, the greater your strength, the quieter your manner.

Punishment is the last and least effective instrument in the hands of the legislator for the prevention of crime.

And besides; the problem of land, at its worst, is a bye one; distribute the earth as you will, the principal question remains inexorable, —Who is to dig it? Which of us, in brief word, is to do the hard and dirty work for the rest, and for what pay?

..the art of becoming 'rich', in the common sense, is not absolutely nor finally the art of accumulating much money for ourselves, but also of contriving that our neighbour shall have less. In accurate terms, it is 'the art of establishing the maximum inequality in your own favour'.

The work of science is to substitute facts for appearances, and demonstrations for impressions.

When we build, let us think that we build for ever.

He who has the truth at his heart need never fear the want of persuasion on his tongue.

All true opinions are living, and show their life by being capable of nourishment; therefore of change. But their change is that of a tree — not of a cloud.

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.

For certainly it is excellent discipline for an author to feel that he must say all he has to say in the fewest possible words, or his reader is sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words, or his reader will certainly misunderstand them.

Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together.

Life without industry is guilt, and industry without art is brutality.

I have always found that the less we speak of our intentions, the more chance there is of our realizing them.

Work first and then rest. Work first, and then gaze, but do not use golden ploughshares, nor bind ledgers in enamel.

Endurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty.

There is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.

A little group of wise hearts is better than a wilderness full of fools.

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: honour that; rejoice in it; and, as you can, try to imitate it.