David Hume Quotes

The art of music is good, for the reason, among others, that it produces pleasure; but what proof is it possible to give that pleasure is good? If, then, it is asserted that there is a comprehensive formula, including all things which are in themselves good, and that whatever else is good, is not so as an end, but as a mean, the formula may be accepted or rejected, but is not a subject of what is commonly understood by proof.

I think beauty is a feeling that you get after you've had an experience. It's the way you feel about it that is beautiful.

The value of art is in the observer.

A value is valuable when the value of value is valuable to oneself.

Beauty, whether moral or natural, is felt, more properly than perceived.

A picture is the expression of an impression. If the beautiful were not in us, how would we ever recognize it?

Beauty is altogether in the eye of the beholder.

We have no other means of recognising a work of art than our feeling for it.

Beauty is whatever gives joy.

I love art, but I'm not an academic; I just like what I like.

I don't know why, it's the same reason why you like some music and you don't like others. There's something about it that you like. Ultimately I don't find it's in my best interests to try and analyze it, since it's fundamentally emotional.

How can you say when you're attracted to something? It's not easy to articulate my tastes.

Music is very abstract. When we talk about music, we're not discussing the music itself but rather how we react to it.

I just hold out for pieces where I immediately feel an emotional connection with a part.

The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good.

Whatever one loves most is beautiful.

Beautiful things, when taste is formed, are obviously and unaccountably beautiful.

Beauty . . . cannot be interpreted. It is not an empirically verifiable fact; it is not a quantity.

There is to my mind no doubt that the concept of beautiful had its roots in sexual excitation and that its original meaning was sexually stimulating.

I don't know why people see the things that they do. I wouldn't pay to see them, they don't touch me or move me in any way.

If you come at movies with your own sense of morality and not your own sense of aesthetics, I think you're screwed. I think that's not a way to look at movies.

Art is amoral; so is life. For me there are no obscene pictures or books; there are only poorly conceived and poorly executed ones.

You do not need to know anything about a plant to know that it is beautiful.

How is it possible to suspend topaz in one cup of the balance and weigh it against amethyst in the other; or who in a single language can compare the tranquillizing grace of a maiden with the invigorating pleasure of witnessing a well-contested rat-fight?