Speaking of the Helen Keller quote that you mentioned:

Earlier today, I had a quiet walk in a park near where I live, a dirt trail that circles through a forest full of towering trees and green shrubbery, and it was the most breathtaking, indescribably beautiful experience that I ever remember having.

I was walking along feeling absolutely wonderful, when I realized that my mind was completely at peace. My mind was "silent", and I, perhaps for the first time ever in my life, could really take in the beauty of the forest, all the trees and plants and sounds of owls hooting and birds chirping in the distance. I was literally overcome with how beautiful it was, I could feel this wonderful energy of, I guess you could call it "curiosity", buzzing inside of me.

It felt as if I was really looking at things as they are, for the first time, without the biases of my beliefs and judgments about what those things are.

Where this relates to your post is what happened around the time that I had this realization: I crossed paths with this elder lady, probably twenty years older than me, and I got the most beautiful smile from her as I said "hello". But what really struck me was how beautiful she appeared to me. I wouldn't say that I was sexually attracted to her, or anything like that, but, presumably due to my state of mind, I sensed so much openness and peace in that exchange, brief though it was, and so much wonder and curiosity, in general, that I was overcome with "love", for lack of a better word. In other words, the exchange with this elderly woman was, itself, an expression of beauty to me, in that moment, when I was in that state of mind.

And I guess that's my point. A person's state of mind, IMO, has EVERYTHING to do with what they experience as beautiful and ugly. Also, a person's energy has a lot more to do with their beauty than their physical looks (which is why I can say that I find a woman to be beautiful without necessarily being attracted to her). That being said, even the physical appearance of other people moves to new heights when we can manage to achieve the presence of mind that I discovered in my "woods walk" earlier today. EVERYTHING looks more beautiful and takes on more meaning when we can shut up the voice (thoughts) that tells us what something or someone is or isn't.