Quotessence
Home / Authors / Thomas Cole
Thomas Cole

Thomas Cole Quotes

Artist

Filter quotes by topic

AllNatureIfsSceneSoulSpiritStillsCastsContemplationCreationDepth

Famous Thomas Cole Quotes

“How I have walked... day after day, and all alone, to see if there was not something among the old things which was new!”

IfsAll AloneOld Things
Book:The Course of Empire: Voyage of Life, and Other Pictures of Thomas Cole, N.A., with Selections from His Letters and Miscellaneous Writings: Illustrative of His Life, Character, and Genius
Create image

“If the imagination is shackled, and nothing is described but what we see, seldom will anything truly great be produced either in Painting or Poetry”

IfsImaginationPainting
Book:The Course of Empire: Voyage of Life, and Other Pictures of Thomas Cole, N.A., with Selections from His Letters and Miscellaneous Writings: Illustrative of His Life, Character, and Genius
Create image

“It was not that the jagged precipices were lofty, that the encircling woods were the dimmest shade, or that the waters were profoundly deep; but that over all, rocks, wood, and water, brooded the spirit of repose, and the silent energy of nature stirred the soul to its inmost depths.”

SoulSpiritEnergyWaterNatureTreeRocksSilentDepthWoodsPainterShadeLoftyReposeBroodingPrecipice
Book:The collected essays and prose sketches
Create image

“. . .nature is still predominant, and there are those who regret that with the improvements of cultivation the sublimity of the wilderness should pass away: for those scenes of solitude from which the hand of nature has never been lifted, affect the mind with a more deep toned emotion than aught which the hand of man has touched. Amid them the consequent associations are of God the creator-they are his undefiled works, and the mind is cast into the contemplation of eternal things.”

MenShouldMindStillsHandsNatureEmotionRegretSceneSolitudeEternalCastsCreatorImprovementContemplationTouchedWildernessAssociationPassing AwayCultivationSublimity
Author:Thomas Cole
Create image

“And rural nature is full of the same quickening spirit-it is, in fact, the exhaustless mine from which the poet and the painter have brought such wondrous treasures-an unfailing fountain of intellectual enjoyment, where all may drink, and be awakened to a deeper feeling of the works of genius, and a keener perception of the beauty of our existence. For those whose days are all consumed in the low pursuits of avarice, or the gaudy frivolities of fashion, unobservant of nature's loveliness, are unconscious of the harmony of creation”

MayFactsFeelingsSpiritNatureExistenceFashionCreationMinesPoetGeniusDrinkPerceptionIntellectualLowsHarmonyDeeperPursuitTreasurePainterEnjoymentUnconsciousFountainConsumedAwakenedAvariceWondrousLovelinessFrivolityGaudyQuickening
Book:The collected essays and prose sketches
Create image