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 PaterRead
To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life . . . Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself, is the end . . . For art comes to you professing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments' sake.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Success in life is about experiencing and cherishing moments rather than just achieving tangible results.
This quote emphasizes that true success lies in the quality of our experiences and the intensity with which we engage in life. Walter Pater suggests that art allows us to appreciate and enrich our moments, making the experience of living itself the ultimate goal, rather than merely focusing on outcomes or achievements.
Themes
ExperienceArtMomentsSuccessQualityLife
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech about creativity and the importance of appreciating the art of living.
More from Walter Pater
All quotes βBooks are a refuge, a sort of cloistral refuge, from the vulgarities of the actual world.
Walter PaterRead
A very intimate sense of the expressiveness of outward things, which ponders, listens, penetrates, where the earlier, less developed consciousness passed lightly by, is an important element in the general temper of our modern poetry.
Walter PaterRead
Art comes to you proposing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass.
Walter PaterRead
At first sight experience seems to bury us under a flood of external objects, pressing upon us with a sharp and importunate reality, calling us out of ourselves in a thousand forms of action.
Walter PaterRead
Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself, is the end.
Walter PaterRead
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