I now require this of all pictures, that they domesticate me, not that they dazzle me. Pictures must not be too picturesque. Nothing astonishes men so much as common-sense and plain dealing. All great actions have been simple, and all great pictures are.
Ralph Waldo EmersonPeople wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.
Ralph Waldo EmersonBut I shall hear without pain, that I play the courtier very ill, and talk of that which I do not well understand.
Ralph Waldo Emerson