OSHO

When I use the word 'aesthetics' I mean a quality in you. It has nothing to do with objects -- paintings, music, poetry -- it has something to do with a quality in your being, a sensitivity, a love for beauty, a sensitivity for the texture and taste of things, for the eternal dance that goes on all around, an awareness of it, a silence to hear this cuckoo calling from the distance....
- The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 1, Chapter #8


To me, aesthetics is the closest neighbor of religiousness, not ethics.
Lenin is reported to have said, 'Ethics will be the aesthetics of the future.' I say: No, just the contrary; aesthetics will be the ethics of the future. Beauty is going to be the truth of the future, because beauty can be created. And a beautiful person, who loves beauty, who lives beauty, who creates beauty, is moral -- and with no effort. His morality is not a cultivated morality, it is just his aesthetic sense that makes him moral.
- The Secret of Secrets, Vol 1, Chapter #9

Life is a hierarchy of needs. First the physical need has to be taken care of, the material existence has to be taken care of. Science fulfills a basic need. If you miss science you will miss religion. Between science and religion is the world of art. These are the three basic dimensions of life. Science has to take care of the material, the physiological, the biological -- the extrovert needs of man. Religion has to take care of the innermost -- the interiority, the subjectivity. And between the two is the world of aesthetics: art, poetry, music, dance, drama, literature.
- The Goose is Out, Chapter #4

Aesthetics is just an artistic approach towards life, a poetic vision. Seeing colors so totally that each tree becomes a painting, that each cloud brings the presence of God, that colors are more colorful, that you don't go on ignoring the radiance of things, that you remain alert, aware, loving, that you remain receptive, welcoming, open. That's what I mean by the aesthetic attitude, the aesthetic approach.
- The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 1, Chapter #8