“And we do want poetry for its beauty […] Yes, only for its beauty; for its moral power over us—its teaching, comforting, and elevating power all depend on its beauty.”

The Monthly Magazine

Part Two: The Lost Music, "The Touchstone" p. 507
The Little Country (1991)
Context: They stood and listened, arms around each other for comfort, as the sound washed over them. It reverberated in the marrow of their bones, sung high and sweet, heartbreakingly mournful, quick as a jig, slow as the saddest air. Their hearts swelled with its beauty, its mystery. With all it revealed, and all that it hid.

These notes were possibly written in preparation for a letter. The meaning is obscure.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.

Source: Phantom

Source: The Remains of the Day

Source: The Martyrdom of Man (1872), Chapter IV, "Intellect", p. 385.

What is Art? (1897)
Context: The good is the everlasting, the pinnacle of our life. … life is striving towards the good, toward God. The good is the most basic idea … an idea not definable by reason … yet is the postulate from which all else follows. But the beautiful … is just that which is pleasing. The idea of beauty is not an alignment to the good, but is its opposite, because for most part, the good aids in our victory over our predilections, while beauty is the motive of our predilections. The more we succumb to beauty, the further we are displaced from the good.... the usual response is that there exists a moral and spiritual beauty … we mean simply the good. Spiritual beauty or the good, generally not only does not coincide with the typical meaning of beauty, it is its opposite.

Some Mistakes of Moses (1879) http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38802/38802-h/38802-h.htm Preface
Context: Too great praise challenges attention, and often brings to light a thousand faults that otherwise the general eye would never see. Were we allowed to read the Bible as we do all other books, we would admire its beauties, treasure its worthy thoughts, and account for all its absurd, grotesque and cruel things, by saying that its authors lived in rude, barbaric times. But we are told that it was written by inspired men; that it contains the will of God; that it is perfect, pure, and true in all its parts; the source and standard of all moral and religious truth; that it is the star and anchor of all human hope; the only guide for man, the only torch in Nature's night. These claims are so at variance with every known recorded fact, so palpably absurd, that every free unbiased soul is forced to raise the standard of revolt.