Picturesque Quotes

• It is not enough to photograph the obviously picturesque.

  Dorothea Lange

  Life, Photography, Enough

  Anne Whiston Spirn, Dorothea Lange (2009). “Daring to Look: Dorothea Lange's Photographs and Reports from the Field”, University Of Chicago Press

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• All the world over, the picturesque yields to the pocketesque.

  Herman Melville

  Art, Money, Yield

  Herman Melville (1998). “Billy Budd, Sailor and Selected Tales”, Oxford University Press, USA

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• The out-of-date returns in due course as the picturesque.

  Agatha Christie

  Return, Nostalgia, Courses

  Agatha Christie (1982). “At Bertram's Hotel”, Pocket

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• I am very fond of the modest manner of life of those solitary owners of remote villages, who in Little Russia are commonly called "old-fashioned," who are like tumbledown picturesque little houses, delightful in their simplicity and complete unlikeness to the new smooth buildings whose walls have not yet been discolored by the rain, whose roofs are not yet covered with green lichen, and whose porch does not display its bricks through the peeling stucco.

  Nikolai Gogol

  Wall, Rain, Russia

  Nikolai Gogol (1985). “The Complete Tales of Nikolai Gogol”, p.1, University of Chicago Press

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• Some say that sudden knowledge of mystical matters is accomplished only in complete quietude, or that Creator, in one of God's many forms, appears only in orderly ways that are beauteous and picturesque, or that the mystical appears only in completely silent ways. All are true. Except for the 'only' part.

  Clarissa Pinkola Estes

  Matter, Way, Silent

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• ... an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite often picturesque liar.

  Mark Twain

  Liars, Humorous, Ambitious

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• But wise men pierce this rotten diction and fasten words again to visible things; so that picturesque language is at once a commanding certificate that he who employs it, is a man in alliance with truth and God.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wise, Men, Diction

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.18, Рипол Классик

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• I do not always find the streets interesting, so I wait until I see picturesque groups and those that compose well in relation to the whole.

  Childe Hassam

  Interesting, Waiting, Groups

  Ulrich W. Hiesinger, Childe Hassam, Jordan-Volpe Gallery (1994). “Childe Hassam: American impressionist”, Te Neues Pub Group

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• In the vast archipelago of the east, where Borneo and Java and Sumatra lie, and the Molucca Islands, and the Philippines, the sea is often fanned only by the land and sea breezes, and is like a smooth bed, on which these islands seem to sleep in bliss,--islands in which the spice and perfume gardens of the world are embowered, and where the bird of paradise has its home, and the golden pheasant, and a hundred others of brilliant plumage, whose flight is among thickets so luxuriant, and scenery so picturesque, that European strangers find there the fairy land of their youthful dreams.

  Frederick Marryat

  Dream, Lying, Home

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• Fanatics are picturesque, mankind would rather see gestures than listen to reasons.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Gestures, Reason, Mankind

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1990). “Twilight of Idols and Anti-Christ”, p.172, Penguin UK

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• It is that faculty by which we discover and enjoy the beautiful, the picturesque, and the sublime in literature, art, and nature; which recognizes a noble thought, as a virtuous mind welcomes a pure sentiment by a involuntary glow of satisfaction. But while the principle of perception is inherent in the soul, it requires a certain amount of knowledge to draw out and direct it.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Beautiful, Art, Soul

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• It is... treading on dangerous ground to paint the picturesque as I am at times doing.

  E. J. Hughes

  Paint, Danger, Treading

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• Pictures must not be too picturesque.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Ernest Spiller, Alfred Riggs Ferguson, Joseph Slater, Jean Ferguson Carr (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.215, Harvard University Press

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• I know exaggerators of both kinds: people whose lies are only picturesque adjectives, and people whose picturesque adjectives are only lies.

  Katharine Fullerton Gerould

  Lying, People, Adjectives

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• It is not just that animals make the world more scenic or picturesque. The lives of animals are woven into our very being - closer than our own breathing - and our soul will suffer when they are gone.

  Gary A. Kowalski

  Loss, Animal, Breathing

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• It is indeed immensely picturesque. I can fancy sitting all a summer's day watching its shadows shorten and lengthen again, and drawing a delicious contrast between the world's duration and the feeble span of individual experience. There is something in Stonehenge almost reassuring; and if you are disposed to feel that life is rather a superficial matter, and that we soon get to the bottom of things, the immemorial gray pillars may serve to remind you of the enormous background of time.

  Henry James

  Summer, Drawing, Shadow

  Henry James (1875). “Transatlantic Sketches”, p.54

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• Never was there a dingier, uglier, less picturesque city than London ... it is really wonderful that so much brick and stone, for centuries together, should have been built up with so poor a result.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Should Have, Cities, Together

  Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Julian Hawthorne (2015). “Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne: Letters, Diaries, Reminiscences and Extensive Biographies: Autobiographical Writings of the Renowned American Novelist, Author of “The Scarlet Letter”, “The House of Seven Gables” and “Twice-Told Tales””, p.817, e-artnow

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• 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 Emerson

  Art, Men, Simple

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Ernest Spiller, Alfred Riggs Ferguson, Joseph Slater, Jean Ferguson Carr (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.215, Harvard University Press

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• In one of the Welsh counties is a small village called A-----. It is somewhat removed from the high road, and is, therefore, but little known to those luxurious amateurs of the picturesque, who view nature through the windows of a carriage and four.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Book, Views, Small Villages

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• I really do seek to create music that is timeless, ... Each project takes on its own life, and the songs from "A Time To Love" are the most appropriate for the statement I wanted to make...The most important thing is, when I do give the music, I'm satisfied with it, that it speaks for what I want to do...It is a different kind of lyric; it's very picturesque. I can see everything that I'm writing, I can visualize all those things happening.

  Stevie Wonder

  Song, Writing, Giving

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• Detroits industrial ruins are picturesque, like crumbling Rome in an 18th-century etching.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Rome, Ruins, Detroit

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• I don't like to be described as a Southern writer. The danger is, if you're described as a Southern writer, you might be thought of as someone who writes about a picturesque local scene like Uncle Tom's Cabin, Gone With the Wind, something like that.

  Walker Percy

  Uncles, Writing, Wind

  Walker Percy, Lewis A. Lawson, Victor A. Kramer (1993). “More Conversations with Walker Percy”, p.223, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• How very seldom do you encounter in the world a man of great abilities, acquirements, experience, who will unmask his mind, unbutton his brains, and pour forth in careless and picturesque phrase all the results of his studies and observation; his knowledge of men, books, and nature. On the contrary, if a man has by any chance an original idea, he hoards it as if it were old gold; and rather avoids the subject with which he is most conversant, from fear that you may appropriate his best thoughts.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Book, Men, Ideas

  "Coningsby". Book by Benjamin Disraeli, Book VII, Ch. 2, 1844.

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• Arles is certainly one of the most interesting towns I have ever seen, whether viewed as a place remarkable for the objects of antiquity it contains, or for the primitive manners of its inhabitants and its picturesque appearance.

  Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington

  Interesting, Towns, Appearance

  Marguerite GARDINER (Countess of Blessington.) (1841). “The Idler in France”, p.19

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• Literature, like a gypsy, to be picturesque, should be a little ragged.

  Douglas William Jerrold

  Literature, Littles, Gypsy

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