(Wikimedia Commons public domain)
John Ruskin was the foremost art critic of Victorian England, as well as a watercolorist, social thinker, and essayist. He was enormously influential in his day, and continues to be read today. Born in London in 1819, he traveled extensively on the European continent and taught at the University of Oxford. In 1871, though, he bought a home on the shore of Coniston Water in the Lake District, and it was his principal residence until his death in 1900.
He was a fine writer and an interesting thinker. Here are three passages from his essays:
“I believe that the first test of a great man is his humility. I don’t mean by humility, doubt of his power. But really great men have a curious feeling that the greatness is not of them, but through them. And they see something divine in every other man and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful.”
“A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small parcel.”
“The highest reward for a man’s toil is not what he gets for it but what he becomes by it.”
Posted from Brockwood Hall, Cumbria, England
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