During the process of reading through relevant (and at times irrelevant) literature, you are bound to run into ideas that are beautiful on their own. Perhaps these might not even be ideas, but ‘just’ thoughts from the author. However, I figure it’s worth irregularly mentioning those that stick with me due to them being relevant, beautiful or simply quite funny.

So, we start with a quote from Irish born (1694) philosopher Francis Hutcheson who wrote the following in the preface of his work:-

‘In the first Treatise, the Author perhaps in some Instances has gone too far, in supposing a greater Agreement of Mankind in their Sense of Beauty, than Experience will
confirm; but all he is solicitous about is to shew, “That there is some Sense of Beauty natural to Men;
that we find
as great an Agreement of Men in their Relishes of Forms, as in their external Senses which all agree to be natural; and that pleasure or Pain, Delight or Aversion, are naturally join’d to their Perceptions.’

An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725, p.10);