Michael Kenna

EDMUND BURKE

1757
The sublime

“Whatever is fitted in any sort to exite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; That is it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling."

Edmund Burke, A pholosophical inquiery into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful (New York :P.F. Collier & Son, 1909-1914); The Harvard Classics, Vol. 24, Part 2.