Walter Pater quotes - page 2

The various forms of intellectual activity which together make up the culture of an age, move for the most part from different starting-points, and by unconnected roads. (Walter Pater)
Philosophical theories or ideas, as points of view, instruments of criticism, may help us to gather up what might otherwise pass unregarded by us. View quote
Walter Pater
And the fifteenth century was an impassioned age, so ardent and serious in its pursuit of art that it consecrated everything with which art had to ad as a religious object. View quote
Walter Pater
Such discussions help us very little to enjoy what has been well done in art or poetry, to discriminate between what is more and what is less excellent in them, or to use words like beauty, excellence, art, poetry, with a more precise meaning than they would otherwise have. View quote
Walter Pater
A counted number of pulses only is given to us of a variegated, dramatic life. How may we see in them all that is to to be seen in them by the finest senses? View quote
Walter Pater
How shall we pass most swiftly from point to point, and be present always at the focus where the greatest number of vital forces unite in their purest energy. To burn always with this hard, gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life. View quote
Walter Pater
Not to discriminate every moment some passionate attitude in those about us, and in the very brilliancy of their gifts some tragic dividing on their ways, is, on this short day of frost and sun, to sleep before evening. View quote
Walter Pater
For art comes to you proposing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments' sake. View quote
Walter Pater
Books are a refuge, a sort of cloistral refuge, from the vulgarities of the actual world. View quote
Walter Pater
All art does but consist in the removal of surplus age. View quote
Walter Pater