---
title: "2 Define Beauty Quotes By Walter Pater"
description: "2 Define Beauty quotes by Walter Pater. Plus more from Walter Pater and more Define Beauty sayings from other authors."
image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/2e7/walter-pater-9808_abstract_many-attempts-have-been-made-by-writers_1682007.jpg"
---

> [Many attempts have been made by writers on art and poetry to define beauty in the abstract, to express it in the most general terms, to find some universal formula for it.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-pater/many-attempts-have-been-made-by-writers-on-art-and-poetry-to-define/)

[Walter Pater](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walter-pater/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/2e7/walter-pater-9808_abstract_many-attempts-have-been-made-by-writers_1682007.jpg)

> [Beauty, like all other qualities presented to human experience, is relative; and the definition of it becomes unmeaning and useless in proportion to its abstractness. To define beauty not in the most abstract, but in the most concrete terms possible,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-pater/beauty-like-all-other-qualities-presented-to-human-experience-is/)

[Walter Pater](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walter-pater/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/559/walter-pater-9808_abstract_beauty-like-all-other-qualities-presente_2236289.jpg)

## More by 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…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-pater/a-counted-number-of-pulses-only-is-given-to-us-of-a-variegated/)

[Walter Pater](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walter-pater/)

> [What we have to do is to be forever curiously testing new opinions and courting new impressions.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-pater/what-we-have-to-do-is-to-be-forever-curiously-testing-new-opinions/)

[Walter Pater](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walter-pater/)

> [One of the most beautiful passages of Rousseau is that in the sixth book of Confessions, where he describes the awakening in him of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-pater/one-of-the-most-beautiful-passages-of-rousseau-is-that-in-the-sixth/)

[Walter Pater](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/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…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-pater/for-art-comes-to-you-proposing-frankly-to-give-nothing-but-the/)

[Walter Pater](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walter-pater/)

> [Every moment some form grows perfect in hand or face; some tone on the hills or the sea is choicer than the rest; some…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-pater/every-moment-some-form-grows-perfect-in-hand-or-face-some-tone-on-the/)

[Walter Pater](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/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 of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-pater/not-to-discriminate-every-moment-some-passionate-attitude-in-those/)

[Walter Pater](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walter-pater/)

> [A certain strangeness, something of the blossoming of the aloe, is indeed an element in all true works of art: that they shall excite…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-pater/a-certain-strangeness-something-of-the-blossoming-of-the-aloe-is/)

[Walter Pater](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walter-pater/)

> [“The younger, certainly, had to the full that charm of a constitutional freshness of aspect which may defy for a long time extravagant or…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-pater/the-younger-certainly-had-to-the-full-that-charm-of-a-constitutional/)

[Walter Pater](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walter-pater/)

> [Books are a refuge, a sort of cloistral refuge, from the vulgarities of the actual world.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-pater/books-are-a-refuge-a-sort-of-cloistral-refuge-from-the-vulgarities-of/)

[Walter Pater](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walter-pater/)

> [The base of all artistic genius is the power of conceiving humanity in a new, striking, rejoicing way, of putting a happy world ofits…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-pater/the-base-of-all-artistic-genius-is-the-power-of-conceiving-humanity/)

[Walter Pater](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walter-pater/)

> [“art is self-sufficient and need serve no moral or political purpose”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-pater/art-is-self-sufficient-and-need-serve-no-moral-or-political-purpose/)

[Walter Pater](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walter-pater/)

> [In a sense it might even be said that our failure is to form habits: for, after all, habit is relative to a stereotyped…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-pater/in-a-sense-it-might-even-be-said-that-our-failure-is-to-form-habits/)

[Walter Pater](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walter-pater/)

> [“The essence of humanism is that belief of which he seems never to have doubted, that nothing which has ever interested living men and…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-pater/the-essence-of-humanism-is-that-belief-of-which-he-seems-never-to/)

[Walter Pater](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walter-pater/)

> [A very intimate sense of the expressiveness of outward things, which ponders, listens, penetrates, where the earlier, less developed consciousness passed lightly by, is…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-pater/a-very-intimate-sense-of-the-expressiveness-of-outward-things-which/)

[Walter Pater](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walter-pater/)

> [That sense of a life in natural objects, which in most poetry is but a rhetorical artifice, was, then, in Wordsworth the assertion of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-pater/that-sense-of-a-life-in-natural-objects-which-in-most-poetry-is-but-a/)

[Walter Pater](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walter-pater/)

```json
{
    "@context": "https://schema.org",
    "@graph": [
        {
            "@type": "ItemList",
            "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/define-beauty/walter-pater/#itemlist",
            "name": "2 Define Beauty Quotes By Walter Pater",
            "numberOfItems": 2,
            "itemListElement": [
                {
                    "@type": "ListItem",
                    "position": 1,
                    "item": {
                        "@type": "Quotation",
                        "text": "Many attempts have been made by writers on art and poetry to define beauty in the abstract, to express it in the most general terms, to find some universal formula for it.",
                        "creator": {
                            "@type": "Person",
                            "name": "Walter Pater"
                        },
                        "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-pater/many-attempts-have-been-made-by-writers-on-art-and-poetry-to-define/",
                        "image": {
                            "@type": "ImageObject",
                            "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/2e7/walter-pater-9808_abstract_many-attempts-have-been-made-by-writers_1682007.jpg",
                            "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/2e7/walter-pater-9808_abstract_many-attempts-have-been-made-by-writers_1682007.jpg",
                            "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/2e7/walter-pater-9808_abstract_many-attempts-have-been-made-by-writers_1682007.jpg",
                            "width": 1080,
                            "height": 1080,
                            "caption": "“Many attempts have been made by writers on art and poetry to define beauty in the abstract, to express it in…” — Walter Pater",
                            "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes",
                            "creator": {
                                "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                {
                    "@type": "ListItem",
                    "position": 2,
                    "item": {
                        "@type": "Quotation",
                        "text": "Beauty, like all other qualities presented to human experience, is relative; and the definition of it becomes unmeaning and useless in proportion to its abstractness. To define beauty not in the most abstract, but in the most concrete terms possible, not to find a universal formula for it, but the formula which expresses most adequately this or that special manifestation of it, is the aim of the true student of aesthetics.",
                        "creator": {
                            "@type": "Person",
                            "name": "Walter Pater"
                        },
                        "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-pater/beauty-like-all-other-qualities-presented-to-human-experience-is/",
                        "image": {
                            "@type": "ImageObject",
                            "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/559/walter-pater-9808_abstract_beauty-like-all-other-qualities-presente_2236289.jpg",
                            "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/559/walter-pater-9808_abstract_beauty-like-all-other-qualities-presente_2236289.jpg",
                            "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/559/walter-pater-9808_abstract_beauty-like-all-other-qualities-presente_2236289.jpg",
                            "width": 1080,
                            "height": 1080,
                            "caption": "“Beauty, like all other qualities presented to human experience, is relative; and the definition of it…” — Walter Pater",
                            "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes",
                            "creator": {
                                "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
            ]
        },
        {
            "@type": "CollectionPage",
            "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/define-beauty/walter-pater/#webpage",
            "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/define-beauty/walter-pater/",
            "name": "Define Beauty Quotes by Walter Pater",
            "isPartOf": {
                "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#website"
            },
            "mainEntity": {
                "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/define-beauty/walter-pater/#itemlist"
            },
            "primaryImageOfPage": {
                "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/2e7/walter-pater-9808_abstract_many-attempts-have-been-made-by-writers_1682007.jpg"
            },
            "description": "2 Define Beauty quotes by Walter Pater. Plus more from Walter Pater and more Define Beauty sayings from other authors.",
            "breadcrumb": {
                "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/define-beauty/walter-pater/#breadcrumb"
            }
        },
        {
            "@type": "BreadcrumbList",
            "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/define-beauty/walter-pater/#breadcrumb",
            "itemListElement": [
                {
                    "@type": "ListItem",
                    "position": 1,
                    "name": "Home",
                    "item": "https://sms4smile.com/"
                },
                {
                    "@type": "ListItem",
                    "position": 2,
                    "name": "Quotes",
                    "item": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/"
                },
                {
                    "@type": "ListItem",
                    "position": 3,
                    "name": "Topics",
                    "item": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/categories/"
                },
                {
                    "@type": "ListItem",
                    "position": 4,
                    "name": "Define Beauty",
                    "item": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/define-beauty/"
                },
                {
                    "@type": "ListItem",
                    "position": 5,
                    "name": "Walter Pater",
                    "item": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/define-beauty/walter-pater/"
                }
            ]
        },
        {
            "@type": "WebSite",
            "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#website",
            "name": "SMS4Smile Quotes",
            "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/",
            "publisher": {
                "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization"
            }
        },
        {
            "@type": "Organization",
            "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization",
            "name": "SMS4Smile Quotes",
            "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/",
            "logo": {
                "@type": "ImageObject",
                "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/themes/sq/assets/icons/icon-512.png",
                "width": 512,
                "height": 512
            }
        }
    ]
}
```