John Kenneth Galbraith quote: “There is certainly no absolute standard of beauty. That precisely is what makes its pursuit so interesting.”

“Painting, an oeuvre, is not such a big deal, it is so unimportant. But that’s precisely what makes it interesting.”

Bram van Velde (1895–1981) Dutch painter

1970's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde (1970 - 1972)

“The pursuit of truth is chimerical. That is why it is so hard to say what truth is. There is no permanent absolute unchangeable truth; what we should pursue is the most convenient arrangement of our ideas.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Truth, ii
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIX - Truth and Convenience

“Marriage as a community of interests unfailingly means the degradation of the interested parties, and it is the perfidy of the world's arrangements that no one, even if aware of it, can escape such degradation. The idea might therefore be entertained that marriage without ignominy is a possibility reserved for those spared the pursuit of interests, for the rich. But the possibility is purely formal, for the privileged are precisely those in whom the pursuit of interests has become second-nature—they would not otherwise uphold privilege.”

Theodor W. Adorno book Minima Moralia

E. Jephcott, trans. (1974), § 10
Minima Moralia (1951)

“The interesting thing is what happens in the specific picture: its precision in terms of the sensations it produces — the illusion it creates and the effect of this illusion on the psychology opposed to it.”

Patrick Swift (1927–1983) British artist

X magazine (1959-62)
Context: The interesting thing is what happens in the specific picture: its precision in terms of the sensations it produces — the illusion it creates and the effect of this illusion on the psychology opposed to it. General philosophical and technical information however interesting in itself is secondary to this reality.

“Horror is always aware of its cause; terror never is. That is precisely what makes terror terrifying.”

Christopher Isherwood (1904–1986) English novelist

Great English Short Stories (1957), selected and introduced by Isherwood, p. 267 
Context: Horror is always aware of its cause; terror never is. That is precisely what makes terror terrifying.

“It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance, for our consideration and application of these things, and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process.”

Henry James (1843–1916) American novelist, short story author, and literary critic

Letter to H.G. Wells (10 July 1915).

“Art for Art's Sake means, for its adepts, the pursuit of pure beauty – without any other consideration.”

Théophile Gautier Paris

L'art pour l'art signifie, pour les adeptes, un travail dégagé de toute préoccupation autre que celle du beau en lui-même.
L'art moderne (Paris: Michel Lévy Frères, 1856) p. 151; F. W. Ruckstull Great Works of Art and What Makes Them Great (New York: Putnam, 1925) p. 299

“Every serious novel is, beyond its immediate thematic preoccupations, a discussion of the craft, a conquest of the form, a conflict with its difficulties and a pursuit of its felicities and beauty.”

Ralph Ellison (1914–1994) American novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer

"Society, Morality and the Novel" (1957), in The Collected Essays, ed. John F. Callahan (New York: Modern Library, 1995), p. 699.

“The beginning of religion, more precisely its content, is the concept of religion itself, that God is the absolute truth, the truth of all things, and subjectively that religion alone is the absolutely true knowledge.”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) German philosopher

Lectures on Philosophy of Religion, Volume 1 (1827)

“The interesting thing is what happens in the specific picture: its precision in terms of the sensations it produces — the illusion it creates and the effect of this illusion on the psychology opposed to it. General philosophical and technical information however interesting in itself is secondary to this reality.”

Patrick Swift (1927–1983) British artist

X magazine (1959-62)

“There is certainly no absolute standard of beauty. That precisely is what makes its pursuit so interesting.”

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