Many attempts have been made by writers on art and poetry to define beauty in the abstract, to express it in the most general terms, to find some universal formula for it. – Walter Pater
One of the most beautiful passages of Rousseau is that in the sixth book of Confessions, where he describes the awakening in him of the literary sense. Of such wisdom, the poetic passion, the desire of beauty, the love of art for its own sake, has most. – Walter Pater
Books are a refuge, a sort of cloistral refuge, from the vulgarities of the actual world. – Walter Pater
No account of the Renaissance can be complete without some notice of the attempt made by certain Italian scholars of the fifteenth century to reconcile Christianity with the religion of ancient Greece. – Walter Pater
What I enjoy doing more than anything is, I have my little antique car collection, and when the weather is pretty I like to get out one of my old cars. I have a little route I run down in the country, down Nachez Trace Parkway. The loop down through there is just really relaxing, not much traffic. – Alan Jackson