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By means of beauty all beautiful things become beautiful.
Socrates
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Beauty transforms and enhances all that is beautiful.

This quote suggests that the concept of beauty is inherently transformative; it is by the presence of beauty itself that other things gain beauty. In a philosophical context, it reflects on how beauty is a fundamental quality that shapes our perceptions and experiences of the world, illustrating the interconnectedness of beauty in various forms and aspects of life.

Themes

BeautyTransformationPerceptionPhilosophy

In practice

Example use cases

In a presentation on art, one might quote this to emphasize how beauty enhances our understanding of artistic expression.

More from Socrates

A system of morality that is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception that has nothing sound in it and nothing true.
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The poets are only the interpreters of the gods.
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I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know.
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The unexamined life is not worth living.
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When I was young, I believed that life might unfold in an orderly way, according to my hopes and expectations. But now I understand that the Way winds like a river, always changing, ever onward.. My journeys revealed that the Way itself creates the warrior; that every path leads to peace, every choice to wisdom. And that life has always been, and will always be, arising in Mystery.
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Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued." "It is not living that matters, but living rightly. The unexamined life is not worth living.
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