Beauty quotes, explained

The first line of Keats's long poem Endymion: beautiful things never lose their power to delight us, and their loveliness grows over time instead of fading.

Art is not meant to teach, preach or serve a practical purpose. Its value is that it is beautiful and gives pleasure, the way a flower does.

Whether something is beautiful depends on the person looking at it. There is no single standard everyone shares.

Beautiful things do not need a purpose to justify them. A flower blooming where no one sees it is reason enough in itself.

The urn tells us that beauty and truth are the same thing, and that this is the only wisdom people need. Whether Keats himself believed it, or is letting the urn speak for itself, is still debated.

The poet decides the beloved is better than a summer's day, which is too short and changeable, and promises that the poem itself will keep their beauty alive forever.

Her beauty is like a clear, starry night, a perfect balance of dark and light, and it comes as much from a calm, good mind as from her face.