We discern beauty in concrete objects and abstract ideas, in works of nature and works of art, in things, animals and people, in objects, qualities and actions. As the list expands to take in just about every ontological category (there are beautiful propositions as well as beautiful worlds, beautiful proofs as well as beautiful snails, even beautiful diseases and beautiful deaths), it becomes obvious that we are not describing a property like shape, size, or colour, uncontroversially present to all who can find their way around the physical world. For one thing: how could there be a single property exhibited by so many disparate types of thing?
ROGER SCRUTON, Beauty
Ne'er boast; for beauty is a dream that fades.
THEOCRITUS, "A Countryman's Wooing"
The kind of beauty I want is the hard-to-get kind that comes from within--strength, courage, dignity.
RUBY DEE, Woman's Day Magazine, Sep. 1, 2009
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