"Through the pursuit of beauty we shape the world as a home and come to understand our own nature as spiritual beings."

"The great artists of the past were aware that human life was full of chaos and suffering but they had a remedy for this and the name of that remedy was beauty. The beautiful work of art brings consolation in sorrow and affirmation in joy, it shows human life to be worthwhile"

"When art becomes merely shock value, our sense of humanity is slowly degraded."

"Modern art was born from a desire to destroy kitsch."

"There’s a real question as to what beauty is and why it’s important to us. Many pseudo-philosophers try to answer these questions and tell us they’re not really answerable. I draw on art and literature, and music in particular, because music is a wonderful example of something that’s in this world but not of this world. Great works of music speak to us from another realm even though they speak to us in ordinary physical sounds."

"Beauty is assailed from two directions - by the cult of ugliness in the arts, and by the cult of utility in everyday life."

"The culture of a civilization is the art and literature through which it rises to consciousness of itself and defines its vision of the world."

"Art once made a cult of beauty. Now we have a cult of ugliness instead. This has made art into an elaborate joke, one which by now has ceased to be funny."