This lovely phrase about sums up what motivated me to create this and other websites, to celebrate some of ‘whatever is splendid in humanity’. 

It is part of a description by Aldous Huxley of why he so likes Piero della Francesca, and it made me warm to him too.  And it is easy to feel one sees those attributes in his self-portrait.

I am attracted to his character by his intellectual power; by his capacity for unaffectedly making the grand and noble gesture; by his pride in whatever is splendid in humanity.

Source: Aldous Huxley, On Art and Artists (London: Chatto and Windus, 1960), p. 14

Image credit: self-portrait of Piero della Francesca