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Taste is that faculty which selects and relishes such combinations of ideas as produce genuine beauty, and rejects the contrary.

— John Mason Good The Book of Nature (1826)

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Beauty

More quotes by John Mason Good

Now, happiness consists in activity: such is the constitution of our nature: it is a running stream and not a stagnant pool.

The Book of Nature (1826)

Not worlds on worlds in phalanx deep,
Need we to prove a God is here;
The Daisy, fresh from Winter's sleep,
Tells of his hand in lines as clear.

The perfection of an art consists in the employment of a comprehensive system of laws, commensurate to every purpose within its scope, but concealed from the eye of the spectator; and in the production of effects that seem to flow forth spontaneously, as though uncontrolled by their influence, and which are equally excellent, whether regarded individually, or in reference to the proposed result.

The Book of Nature (1826)

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Beautiful objects are wrought by study through effort, but ugly things are reaped automatically without toil.

Democritus Freeman (1948)

True beauty dwells in deep retreats,
Whose veil is unremoved
Till heart with heart in concord beats,
And the lover is beloved.

William Wordsworth

The great artists are the ones who dare to entitle to beauty things so natural that when they're seen afterward, people say: Why did I never realize before that this too was beautiful?

André Gide The Immoralist (1902)

Beauty itself doth of itself persuade
The eyes of men without an orator.

William Shakespeare The Rape of Lucrece (1594)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: John Mason Good (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.