"That is the kind of beauty I was trying to get you to see," Orolo told me. Nothing is more important than that you see and love the beauty that is right in front of you, or else you will have no defense against the ugliness that will hem you in and come at you in so many ways."
--from Anathem, by Neal Stephenson
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The pain of beauty (from A Severe Mercy by Sheldon VanAuken, Ch.2)
"We talked and looked at each other by firelight... She told me about a coasting voyage she had taken all by herself, just because she wanted to be on a ship and the sea... There had been a storm, and the passengers had run or been shoo'd below; but Jean had crept forward into the bow and crouched in a coil of line, wet and loving the spray and the plunging bow... Then we discovered that we both loved poetry... she liked dogs... liked to paddle in a canoe along the wooded shores at night, listening to the owls... Then--she said something about how beauty hurts. 'What! You, too?' I exclaimed, in effect. 'You know THAT? The pain of beauty? I thought I was the only one."
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