It seemed to be a necessary ritual that he should prepare himself for sleep by meditating under the solemnity of the night sky... a mysterious transaction between the infinity of the soul and the infinity of the universe.
Victor HugoRead
The ideal and the beautiful are identical; the ideal corresponds to the idea, and beauty to form; hence idea and substance are cognate.
Interpretation
The ideal and beautiful are intertwined concepts, where ideals embody ideas and beauty represents their tangible form.
Victor Hugo suggests that the concepts of the ideal and beauty are fundamentally connected; the ideal represents a conceptual notion whereas beauty represents the physical manifestation of that notion. In this view, what we perceive as beauty in art or nature is a direct reflection of the ideas we hold, indicating that true beauty arises from the integrity of its underlying idea.
In practice
In a discussion about the role of art in society, this quote could exemplify the relationship between an artist's concept and their work's aesthetic appeal.
It seemed to be a necessary ritual that he should prepare himself for sleep by meditating under the solemnity of the night sky... a mysterious transaction between the infinity of the soul and the infinity of the universe.
When two mouths, made sacred by love, draw near to each other to create, it is impossible, that above that ineffable kiss there should not be a thrill in the immense mystery of the stars.
At that moment of love, a moment when passion is absolutely silent under omnipotence of ecstasy, Marius, pure seraphic Marius, would have been more capable of visiting a woman of the streets than of raising Cosetteβs dress above the ankle. Once on a moonlit night, Cosette stopped to pick up something from the ground, her dress loosened and revealed the swelling of her breasts. Marius averted his eyes.
Thought is the work of the intellect, reverie is its self-indulgence. To substitute day-dreaming for thought is to confuse a poison with a source of nourishment.
Taste is the common sense of genius.
Forget not, never forget that you have promised me to use this silver to become an honest man.... Jean Valjean, my brother: you belong no longer to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I am buying for you. I withdraw it from dark thoughts and from the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God!
Every actor looks all his life for a part that will combine his talents with his personality... 'The Odd Couple' was mine. That was the plutonium I needed. It all started happening after that.
Enjoying fiction requires a shift in selfhood. You give up your own identity and try on the identities of other people, adopting their perspectives so as to share their experiences. This allows us to enjoy fictional events that would shock and sadden us in real life.
We write from aspiration and antagonism, as well as from experience. We paint those qualities which we do not posses.
It's a product of two poles - there's the pole of the one who makes the work, and the pole of the one who looks at it. I give the latter as much importance as the one who makes it.
My weakness has always been to prefer the large intention of an unskilful artist to the trivial intention of an accomplished one: in other words, I am more interested in the high ideas of a feeble executant than in the high execution of a feeble thinker.
Creativity helps us realize that we don't have to understand everything. We can enjoy something -feel it and use it- without ever fully comprehending it.
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