“Beauty lay not in the thing, but in what the thing symbolized.”

Source: Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Last update Sept. 2, 2021. History

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Thomas Hardy171

English novelist and poet 1840–1928

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Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

Source: Tess of the D'Urbervilles

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“Gold as it was, is, shall be evermore:
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“Nature consists of the elements given by the senses. Primitive man first takes out of them certain complexes of these elements that present themselves with a certain stability and are most important to him. The first and oldest words are names for "things". … The sensations are no "symbols of things". On the contrary the "thing" is a mental symbol for a sensation-complex of relative stability. Not the things, the bodies, but colours, sounds, pressures, times (what we usually call sensations) are the true elements of the world.”

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“Beauty lay not in the thing, but in what the thing symbolized.”

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