What is lovely never dies, But passes into other loveliness, Star-dust, or sea-foam, flower or winged air.
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH, A Shadow of the Night
Much that is said about beauty and its importance in our lives ignores the minimal beauty of an unpretentious street, a nice pair of shoes or a tasteful piece of wrapping paper, as though those things belonged to a different order of value from a church by Bramante or a Shakespeare sonnet. Yet these minimal beauties are far more important to our daily lives, and far more intricately involved in our own rational decisions, than the great works of art which (if we are lucky) occupy our leisure hours. They are part of the context in which we live our lives, and our desire for harmony, fittingness and civility is both expressed and confirmed in them. Moreover, the great works of architecture often depend for their beauty on the humble context that these lesser beauties provide.
ROGER SCRUTON, Beauty
Affect not to despise beauty: no one is freed from its dominion;
But regard it not a pearl of price--it is fleeting as the bow in the clouds.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER, Proverbial Philosophy
