There is something in painting which cannot be explained, and that something is essential.You come to nature withyour theories, and nature knocksthemall flat.

-Renoir, Pierre Auguste
c.1915  Quoted in AmbroiseVollard Renoir, an Intimate Record (1930).

Secrecy is the first essential in the affairs of State.

-Cardinal Richelieu
  Testament Politique.

On ne voit bien qu'avec le c½ur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux. Only with the heart can a person see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

-Saint-Exupe¤  ry, Antoine de
  Le Petit Prince.

   Photography was conceived as a mirror of the universal elements and emotions ofthe everydayness of lifeöas a mirror of the essential oneness of mankind throughout the world.

-Steichen, Edward Jean
Quoted in Dialogue, May1989.