Aesthetics (; also spelled esthetics) is a branch of philosophy that explores the nature of art, beauty, and taste, with the creation and appreciation of beauty.
The taste of the more recent accessions to the leisure class proper and of the middle and lower classes still requires a pecuniary beauty to supplement the aesthetic beauty, even in those objects which are primarily admired for the beauty that belongs to them as natural growths.
Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions (1899).
The story of English literature, viewed aesthetically, is one thing; the story of English writers is quite another. The price of contributing to the greatest literature the world has ever seen is often struggle and penury: art is still too often its own reward.
Anthony Burgess, English Literature : A Survey for Students (1958, revised 1974).
I think décor says a lot about someone's social position, their taste, their sensibility, their work - and also about the aesthetic way I have chosen to tell their story.
When you think about the Earth’s oceans you probably imagine stretches of deep, dark water, exotic marine life and pristine waves. You probably don’t think of vast islands of plastic waste such as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an expanse of rubbish which some say is bigger than the continental United States. It was feared that collections of plastic debris like this were growing in line with our increasing rates of plastic production over the past decades. However, scientists have recently discovered that these floating eyesores are mysteriously receding – and that’s actually not a good thing…