Instead, it appears to be a particular mark of beauty that it is considered with tranquil satisfaction; that it pleases if we also do not possess it and we are still far removed from demanding to possess it.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of greater vanity in others; it make us vain, in fact, of our modesty.
Beauty is desired in order that it may be befouled; not for its own sake, but for the joy brought by the certainty of profaning it.
As soon as beauty is sought not from religion and love, but for pleasure, it degrades the seeker.
It may easily come to pass that a vain man may become proud and imagine himself pleasing to all when he is in reality a universal nuisance.
Even in the centuries which appear to us to be the most monstrous and foolish, the immortal appetite for beauty has always found satisfaction.
The pleasure we derive from the representation of the present is due, not only to the beauty it can be clothed in, but also to its essential quality of being the present.
The rare pleasure of being seen for what one is, compensates for the misery of being it.
We no longer dare to believe in beauty and we make of it a mere appearance in order the more easily to dispose of it.
Everything is vain and tortures the spirit instead of calming and satisfying it.
It is vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.