Painting Quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

24 Painting quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

All Painting quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson’s page

Emerson’s reflections on painting weave his larger philosophical ideas into concrete images, and these twenty‑four passages give a clear sense of his reverence for the visual.

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Painting was called silent poetry and poetry speaking painting.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Sculpture and painting have the effect of teaching us manners and abolishing hurry.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The eye is the painter and the ear the singer.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Teach the children! It is painting in fresco.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A painter told me that nobody could draw a tree without in some sort becoming a tree.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The best picture makes us say, I am a painter also.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Great is paint; nay, God is the painter; and we rightly accuse the critic who destroys too many illusions. Society does not…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The picture waits for my verdict; it is not to command me, but I am to settle its claim to praise.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Art is a jealous mistress, and if a man has a genius for painting, poetry, music, architecture or philosophy, he makes a…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Light is the first of painters. There is no object so foul that intense light will not make it beautiful.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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There is no way to success in art but to take off your coat, grind paint, and work like a digger on…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I have heard that stiff people lose something of their awkwardness under high ceilings, and in spacious halls. I think, sculptureand painting…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A painter told me that nobody could draw a tree without in some sort becoming a tree; or draw a child by…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I suppose an entire cabinet of shells would be an expression of the whole human mind; a Flora of the whole globe…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The masters painted for joy, and knew not that virtue had gone out of them. They could not paint the like in…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Daughter of heaven and earth, coy Spring, With sudden passion languishing, Teaching barren moors to smile, Painting pictures mile on mile, Holds…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The poet, the painter, the sculptor, the musican, the architect, seek each to concentrate this radiance of the world on one point,…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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There are moods in which we court suffering, in the hope that here, at least, we shall find reality, sharp peaks and…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Though many painters and sculptors talk glibly of "going in for photography," you will find that very few of them can ever…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“Nothing is quite beautiful alone: nothing but is beautiful in the whole. A single object is only so far beautiful as it…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Herein is the explanation of the analogies, which exist in all the arts. They are the re-appearance of one mind, working in…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not. The…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Painting seems to be to the eye what dancing is to the limbs. When that has educated the frame to self-possession, to…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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But the mark of American merit in painting, in sculpture, in poetry, in fiction, in eloquence, seems to be a certain grace…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records…

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If we will not interfere with our thought, but will act entirely, or see how the thing stands in God, we know the particular…

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If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution; when the old and the…

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A man cannot speak but he judges himself. With his will or against his will he draws his portrait to the eye of his…

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Consideration is the soil in which wisdom may be expected to grow, and strength be given to every up-springing plant of duty.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The order of things consents to virtue.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Life only avails, not the having lived.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Another success is the post-office, with its educating energy augmented by cheapness and guarded by a certain religious sentimentin mankind; so that the power…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A child reminds us that playtime is an essential part of our daily routine.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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No man can be criticised but by a greater than he. Do not, then, read the reviews.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Coal lay in ledges under the ground since the Flood, until a laborer with pick and windlass brings it to the surface. We may…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I am; therefore, I had nothing better to do than to think.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear friends, but they are imprisoned by an enchanter in these paper and leathern…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The compensations of calamity are made apparent to the understanding also, after long intervals of time. A fever, a mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a…

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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