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The ascetic demand that we renounce art, turn our backs on aesthetic feelings, and reject beauty may seem a necessary one. But we have to beware here of falling into the danger which Angelique de Arnauld, Abbess de Port Royal, fell into. She said: "Love of poverty makes one choose what is ugliest, coarsest, and dirtiest." She was the same Mother Superior who refused to allow any form of recreation to her nuns, so that some of them had nervous breakdowns and others went mad.

-- Notebooks Category 6: Emotions and Ethics > Chapter 6 : Avoid Fanaticism > # 41