A man must know how to estimate a sour face. The sour face of the multitude, like thier sweet faces, have no deep cause, but are put on and off as the wind blows and the newspaper directs.
Ralph Waldo EmersonNations have lost their old omnipotence; the patriotic tiedoes not hold. Nations are getting obsolete, we go and live where we will.
Ralph Waldo EmersonWhence, then, this worship of the past? The centuries are conspirators against the sanity and authority of the soul.
Ralph Waldo EmersonPainting seems to be to the eye what dancing is to the limbs. When that has educated the frame to self-possession, to nimbleness,to grace, the steps of the dancing-master are better forgotten; so painting teaches me the splendor of color and the expression of form, and as I see many pictures and higher genius in the art, I see the boundless opulence of the pencil, the indifferency in which the artist stands free to choose out of the possible forms.
Ralph Waldo Emerson