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Full Idea
One should step up from physical beauty, to moral beauty, to the beauty of knowledge, until at last one knows what absolute beauty is.
Clarification
'Beauty' is the Greek word 'kalos', which also translates as 'fine'
Gist of Idea
Progress goes from physical beauty, to moral beauty, to the beauty of knowledge, and reaches absolute beauty
Source
Plato (The Symposium [c.384 BCE], 211c)
Book Ref
Plato: 'The Symposium', ed/tr. Hamilton,W [Penguin 1951], p.94
A Reaction
Presumably this is why Socrates refused sexual favours to Alcibiades. The idea is inspiring, and yet it is a rejection of humanity.
| 185 | Socrates despised good looks [Socrates, by Plato] |
| 282 | Non-physical beauty can only be shown clearly by speech [Plato] |
| 183 | Stage two is the realisation that beauty of soul is of more value than beauty of body [Plato] |
| 184 | Progress goes from physical beauty, to moral beauty, to the beauty of knowledge, and reaches absolute beauty [Plato] |
| 2837 | Nothing contrary to nature is beautiful [Aristotle] |
| 5851 | Pentathletes look the most beautiful, because they combine speed and strength [Aristotle] |
| 4870 | The most beautiful hand seen through the microscope will appear horrible [Spinoza] |
| 7540 | Beauty is a manifestation of secret natural laws [Goethe] |
| 19578 | Only self-illuminated perfect individuals are beautiful [Novalis] |
| 22042 | Natural beauty is unimportant, because it doesn't show human freedom [Hegel, by Pinkard] |
| 18326 | The beautiful never stands alone; it derives from man's pleasure in man [Nietzsche] |
| 23921 | Our feeling for natural beauty is different from the aesthetic emotion of art [Bell,C] |
| 23929 | We only see landscapes as artistic if we ignore their instrumental value [Bell,C] |
| 18548 | Natural beauty reassures us that the world is where we belong [Scruton] |