Thomas Cole Quotes

It is the sky that makes the earth so lovely at sunrise, and so splendid at sunset. In the one it breathes over the earth the crystal-like ether, in the other the liquid gold.

We are still in Eden; the wall that shuts us out is our own ignorance and folly.

To walk with nature as a poet is the necessary condition of a perfect artist.

How lovely are the portals of the night, when stars come out to watch the daylight die.

Amid those scenes of solitude... the mind is cast into the contemplation of eternal things.

Overall, rocks, wood and water, brooded the spirit of repose, and the silent energy of nature stirred the soul to its innermost depths.

None know how often the hand of God is seen in a wilderness but them that rove it for a man's life.

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

Nothing is invented and brought to perfection all at once.

I never succeed in painting scenes, however beautiful, immediately upon returning from them. I must wait for a time to draw a veil over the common details.

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

The ills of discrimination are still with us. We have to continue the tenacity and vigilance of the 1960s. Racial understanding is not something we find; it's something we create.

How lovely are the portals of the night When stars come out to watch the daylight die.