The Wall

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“What a dear old wall that is that runs along by the river there! I never pass it without feeling better for the sight of it. Such a mellow, bright, sweet old wall; what a charming picture it would make, with the lichen creeping here, and the moss growing there, a shy young vine peeping over the top at this spot, to see what is going on upon the busy river, and the sober old ivy clustering a little farther down! There are fifty shades and tints and hues in every ten yards of that old wall. . . . It looks so peaceful and so quiet, and it is such a dear old place to ramble round in the early morning before many people are about.” Jerome K. Jerome, “Three Men In A Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)” Ch. 6 (1889)

A Beautiful Human Being

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"What then makes a beautiful human being? Is it not the possession of human excellence? And do you, then, if you wish to be beautiful, young man, labour at this, the acquisition of human excellence. But what is this? Observe whom you yourself praise, when you praise many persons without partiality: do you praise the just or the unjust? 'The just.' Whether do you praise the even-tempered or the undisciplined? 'The even-tempered.' And the self-controlled or the uncontrolled? 'The self-controlled.' If, then, you make yourself such a person, you will know that you will make yourself beautiful: but so long as you neglect these things, you must be ugly, even though you contrive all you can to appear beautiful."

(Epictetus, Discourses 3.1.6ff)

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