Walter Pater Quotes

A collection of quotes by Walter Pater.

Walter Pater (1839-1894) was a prominent English essayist, critic, and scholar. He was born on August 4, 1839, in Stepney, London. Pater showed early academic promise, attending King's School in Canterbury before entering Queen's College, Oxford, where he became part of the intellectual and artistic circle known as the Aesthetic Movement.

Pater's most significant work, "Studies in the History of the Renaissance" (1873), made a significant impact on Victorian art criticism. In this collection of essays, he explored the idea of "art for art's sake" and advocated for the appreciation of beauty in all aspects of life. His elegant prose and insightful analysis influenced many writers and artists of the time, including Oscar Wilde and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

Throughout his career, Pater held various academic positions at the University of Oxford, where he taught classics and history. Despite his reserved and introspective nature, he was highly respected by his students. His lectures were said to be captivating and intellectually stimulating.

In addition to his critical essays, Pater published works on Greek and Renaissance art, literature, and philosophy. He continued writing until his untimely death from rheumatic fever on July 30, 1894, at the age of 54. Walter Pater's contributions to aestheticism and art criticism continue to be celebrated and studied for their profound impact on the development of modern literature and thought.

Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself, is the e

Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself, is the end.

A counted number of pulses only is given to us of a variegat

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?

Life Numbers

The service of philosophy, of speculative culture, towards t

The service of philosophy, of speculative culture, towards the human spirit, is to rouse, to startle it to a life of constant and eager observation.

Life Philosophy Service Culture

Many attempts have been made by writers on art and poetry to

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.

Beauty

Not to discriminate every moment some passionate attitude in

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.

Attitude

Experience, already reduced to a group of impressions, is ri

Experience, already reduced to a group of impressions, is ringed round for each one of us by that thick wall of personality through which no real voice has ever pierced on its way to us, or from us to that which we can only conjecture to be without.

Experience

What is important, then, is not that the critic should posse

What is important, then, is not that the critic should possess a correct abstract definition of beauty for the intellect, but a certain kind of temperament, the power of being deeply moved by the presence of beautiful objects.

Beauty

No account of the Renaissance can be complete without some n

No account of the Renaissance can be complete without some notice of the attempt made by certain Italian scholars of the fifteenth century to reconcile Christianity with the religion of ancient Greece.

Religion

I think Chinese leadership is trying to tell the world they

I think Chinese leadership is trying to tell the world they have another set of logic or reasoning or values which are different from yours. Of course, I don't think they believe that. It's just an argument that's made when you can't confront the truth and facts. They really want to maintain power.

Deception/lying

I think Chinese leadership is trying to tell the world they

I think Chinese leadership is trying to tell the world they have another set of logic or reasoning or values which are different from yours. Of course, I don't think they believe that. It's just an argument that's made when you can't confront the truth and facts. They really want to maintain power.

Deception/lying

A very intimate sense of the expressiveness of outward thing

A very intimate sense of the expressiveness of outward things, which ponders, listens, penetrates, where the earlier, less developed consciousness passed lightly by, is an important element in the general temper of our modern poetry.

Poetry

That sense of a life in natural objects, which in most poetr

That sense of a life in natural objects, which in most poetry is but a rhetorical artifice, was, then, in Wordsworth the assertion of what was for him almost literal fact.

Poetry

Such discussions help us very little to enjoy what has been

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.

Beauty

In a sense it might even be said that our failure is to form

In a sense it might even be said that our failure is to form habits: for, after all, habit is relative to a stereotyped world, and meantime it is only the roughness of the eye that makes two persons, things, situations, seem alike.

Failure

One of the most beautiful passages of Rousseau is that in th

One of the most beautiful passages of Rousseau is that in the sixth book of Confessions, where he describes the awakening in him of the literary sense. Of such wisdom, the poetic passion, the desire of beauty, the love of art for its own sake, has most.

Beauty

To burn always with this hard, gem-like flame, to maintain t

To burn always with this hard, gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life.

Success