Those who are esteemed umpires of taste, are often persons who have acquired some knowledge of admired pictures or sculptures, and have an inclination for whatever is elegant; but if you inquire whether they are beautiful souls, and whether their own acts are like fair pictures, you learn that they are selfish and sensual. Their cultivation is local, as if you should rub a log of dry wood in one spot to produce fire, all the rest remaining cold. Their knowledge of the fine arts is some study of rules and particulars, or some limited judgment of color or form which is exercised for amusement or for show. It is a proof of the shallowness of the doctrine of beauty, as it lies in the minds of our amateurs, that men seem to have lost the perception of the instant dependence of form upon soul. . Ralph Waldo Emerson
About This Quote

The art of life is to enjoy the present, and not to be anxious about the future, for the past and the future are already within us. The real art of living lies in enjoyment. The gourmet does not raise himself to perfection by fasting; the musician by silence; the athlete by abstinence; the painter by solitude; nor does any one attain maturity in any line of art under the influence of puritanism. The highest attainment is reached when we find our highest pleasure, and there is no limit to what may be done so long as we do not act below our own ideal.

Source: The Poet

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More Quotes By Ralph Waldo Emerson
  1. You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.

  2. I'll try anything once, twice if I like it, three times to make sure.

  3. It's not the men in your life that matters, it's the life in your men.

  4. I never said it would be easy, I only said it would be worth it.

  5. I never loved another person the way I loved myself.

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