Famous quotes

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“While many a lovely ship below sailed by On unknown errand, kempt and leisurely; And after each, oh, after each, my heart Fled forth, as, watching from the Downs apart, I shared with ships good joys and fortunes wide That might befall their beauty and their pride…”
Vita Sackville-West (1892–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Adela returned on luminous mornings, like Pomona from the fire of the enkindled day, tipping from her basket the colourful beauty of the sun: glistening wild cherries, full of water under their transparent skins, mysterious black cherries whose aroma surpassed that which would be realised in their taste, and apricots, in whose golden pulp lay the core of the long afternoons.”
Bruno Schulz (1892–1942) said by 1942 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To have "It", the fortunate possessor must have that strange magnetism which attracts both sexes. He or she must be entirely unselfconscious and full of self-confidence, indifferent to the effect he or she is producing, and uninfluenced by others. There must be physical attraction, but beauty is unnecessary.”
Elinor Glyn (1864–1943) first seen 1927 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Foreword to It, and Other Stories (1927)
“The west has always shown a sympathetic, although patronizing, appreciation of the old Japan. Many a foreign observer would remark with a sigh: 'What a pity that things of the past, of beauty and joy forever, should be so mercilessly sacrificed on the altar of modernism!'”
Toshio Shiratori (1887–1949) first seen 1942 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in "Behind the Face of Japan"- Page 265 - by Upton Close, Josef Washington Hall - 1942.
“When nature's happiest touch could add no more, Heaven lent an angel's beauty to her face.”
William Julius Mickle (1734–1788) first seen 1770 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mary, Queen of Scots: an Elegy (1770)
“There is more beauty and unity of design in this continual balancing of life to circumstance, and greater conformity to those dispositions of nature which are manifest to us, than in total destruction and new creation... [The] progeny of the same parents, under great differences of circumstance, might, in several generations, even become distinct species, incapable of co-reproduction.”
Patrick Matthew (1790–1874) said by 1874 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Why should I stay? Nor seed nor fruit have I, But, sprung at once to beauty’s perfect round, Nor loss nor gain nor change in me is found,— A life-complete in death-complete to die.”
John B. Tabb (1845–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Bubble, as quoted in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“The things that change are not our real life. Within us there is another body, another beauty. It belongs to that ray of light which never changes. We must discover how to mingle with it and become one with that unchanging thing. We must realize and understand this treasure of truth. That is why we have come to the world.”
Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (1900–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My loving children, my children who were created with God's beauty, my wise children, whatever difficulty you may have, do not ever leave His charge. Just as the prophets of God kept their faith firm and were tolerant in spite of the problems they had, no matter what difficulties you may experience, be tolerant, be forbearant and embrace all living things as your own life.”
Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (1900–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Tree That Fell To The West: Autobiography of a Sufi (2003)
“I slept, and dreamed that life was Beauty; I woke, and found that life was Duty. Was thy dream then a shadowy lie? Toil on, poor heart, unceasingly; And thou shalt find thy dream to be A truth and noonday light to thee.”
Ellen Sturgis Hooper (1812–1848) first seen 1830 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Life a Duty, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "Straight is the line of Duty, / Curved is the line of Beauty, / Follow the straight line, thou hall see / The curved line ever follow t…
“The world is a mirror of infinite beauty, yet no man sees it. It is a Temple of Majesty, yet no man regards it. It is a region of Light and Peace, did not man disquiet it. It is the Paradise of God.”
Thomas Traherne (1636–1674) said by 1674 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Men! O what venerable and reverend creatures did the aged seem! Immortal Cherubims! And young men glittering and sparkling Angels, and maids strange seraphic pieces of life and beauty! Boys and girls tumbling in the street, and playing, were moving jewels. I knew not that they were born or should die; But all things abided eternally as they were in their proper places.”
Thomas Traherne (1636–1674) said by 1674 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Go bow thy head in gentle spite, Thou lily white. For she who spies thee waving here, With thee in beauty can compare As day with night.”
James Matthews Legaré (1823–1859) first seen 1845 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: To a Lily" (1845), stanza 1, in Orta-Undis and Other Poems (Boston: William D. Ticknor & Company, 1848), p. 10.
“I... present also examples of historic interest, examples of real mathematical beauty, and examples illustrating the parallelism of the procedures in other sciences, or in everyday life.”
George Pólya (1887–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is something more mysteriously attractive than beauty: it is corruption.” (Garden of Tortures)”
Octave Mirbeau (1848–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Language, he understood, was chiefly important for the beauty of its sounds, by its possession of words resonant, glorious to the ear, by its capacity, when- exquisitely arranged, of suggesting wonderful and indefinable impressions, perhaps more ravishing and farther removed from the domain of strict thought than the impressions excited by music itself.”
Arthur Machen (1863–1947) first seen 1907 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Hill of Dreams (London: Martin Secker, [1907] 1923) p. 126
“Here then is the pattern in my carpet, the sense of the eternal mysteries, the eternal beauty hidden beneath the crust of common and commonplace things; hidden and yet burning and glowing continually if you care to look with purged eyes.”
Arthur Machen (1863–1947) first seen 1924 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The London Adventure (London: Martin Secker, 1924) p. 25
“We can’t avoid these images and still live in the modern world. And that means we can’t kick this habit, because beauty is a drug that you can’t abstain from unless you literally keep your eyes closed all the time.”
Ted Chiang (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When women are at the height of their beauty power and exercise it, we call it marriage. When men are at the height of their success power and exercise it, we call it a mid-life crisis.”
Warren Farrell (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Women's scars and rituals involved beauty (piercing ears and noses, binding feet, and wearing corsets); men's involved protecting women. In cultures in which physical strength is still the best way to protect women, as among the Dodos in Uganda, each time a man kills a man, he is awarded a ritual scar; the more scars, the more he is considered eligible.”
Warren Farrell (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Minimizing the role of sexual attraction in rape denies our responsibility for reinforcing men's addiction to female sexual beauty and then depriving men of what we've helped addict them to.”
Warren Farrell (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“addiction to female beauty and sex;”
Warren Farrell (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On women Nature did bestow two eyes, Like heaven's bright lamps, in matchless beauty shining, Whose beams do soonest captivate the wise, And wary heads, made rare by art's refining”
Robert Greene (dramatist) first seen 1592 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Philomela (1592); Dyce, p. 315
“Sovereign of beauty, like the spray she grows; Compass'd she is with thorns and canker'd bower. Yet, were she willing to be pluck'd and worn, She would be gather'd, though she grew on thorn.”
Robert Greene (dramatist) first seen 1694 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Song, "Fawnia", l. 11 (ed. 1694); Dyce, p. 294
“Thus fair Samela Passeth fair Venus in her bravest hue, And Juno in the show of majesty, For she's Samela; Pallas in wit, all three, if you well view. For beauty, wit, and matchless dignity, Yield to Samela.”
Robert Greene (dramatist) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Her body Beauty's best-esteemèd bower, Delicious, comely, dainty, without stain.”
Robert Greene (dramatist) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Is there not glory enough in living the days given to us? You should know there is adventure in simply being among those we love and the things we love, and beauty, too.”
Lloyd Alexander (1924–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Brittle beauty, that Nature made so frail, Whereof the gift is small, and short the season; Flowering to-day, to-morrow apt to fail; Tickle treasure, abhorred of reason: Dangerous to deal with, vain, of none avail; Costly in keeping, past not worth two peason.”
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1516–1547) said by 1547 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Life is a chase, And man the hunter, always following on, With hounds of rushing thought or fiery sense, Some hidden truth or beauty, fleeting still For ever through the thick-leaved coverts deep And wind-worn wolds of life.”
Lewis Morris (poet) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The contemplation of beauty in nature, in art, in literature, in human character, diffuses through our being a soothing and subtle joy, by which the heart's anxious and aching cares are softly smiled away.”
Edwin Percy Whipple (1819–1886) said by 1886 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And sorrowing I to see the sommer flowers, The lively greene, the lusty lease, forlorne, The sturdy trees so shattred with the showers, The fieldes so fade, that florisht so beforne: It taught mee well, all earthly things be borne To dye the death: for nought long time may last: The sommer's beauty yeeldes to winter's blast.”
Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset (1536–1608) said by 1608 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Like all fairy tales, the story of Sleeping Beauty begins with "Once upon a time," and continues with a foolish young princess who makes a witch very angry, and then takes a nap until her boyfriend wakes her up with a kiss and insists on getting married, at which point the story ends with the phrase "happily ever after.”
Daniel Handler (born 1970) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Creation smiles in various beauty gay While day to night, and night succeeds day”
Phillis Wheatley (1753–1784) said by 1784 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Harry Dresden: Hers was a beauty so pure that it was nearly painful to behold--Athena heading out on a Friday night.”
Jim Butcher (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is not one judgment day, surely, but a thousand! Every time we confront beauty, truth, goodness or love, our response to them judges us.”
Leslie Weatherhead (1893–1976) said by 1976 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I feel like there's a lot of beauty in the darkness of Narrow Stairs, but that's not really a place I'm ready to go to for a while. I'm interested in taking a different approach and having the next record be different in tone — I'm just not interested in making another dark, dark album.”
Ben Gibbard (born 1976) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Death Cab's Ben Gibbard: "The Next Record Will Be Softer" in SPIN magazine (8 October 2008)
“I once knew a girl In the years of my youth With eyes like the summer All beauty and truth In the morning I fled Left a note and it read Someday you will be loved.”
Ben Gibbard (born 1976) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The beauty other people create is not for the artists. Artists have to live alone.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hast thou left thy blue course in heaven, golden-haired son of the sky? The west has opened its gates; the bed of thy repose is there. The waves come to behold thy beauty. They lift their trembling heads. They see thee lovely in thy sleep; they shrink away with fear. Rest, in thy shadowy cave, O sun! let thy return be in joy.”
James Macpherson (1736–1796) said by 1796 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They stood in silence, in their beauty: like two young trees of the plain, when the shower of spring is on their leaves, and the loud winds are laid.”
James Macpherson (1736–1796) said by 1796 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He produced a work of art which by its deep appreciation of natural beauty and the melancholy tenderness of its treatment of the ancient legend did more than any single work to bring about the romantic movement in European, and especially in German, literature.”
James Macpherson (1736–1796) said by 1796 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th edn. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910-11) vol. 17, p. 268.
“My Saviour! fill up the blurred and blotted sketch which my clumsy hand has drawn of a Divine life, with the fullness of Thy perfect picture. I feel the beauty I cannot realize; robe me in Thine unutterable purity.”
Frederick William Robertson (1816–1853) said by 1853 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The first thing to change in my painting was the color [c. 1908-09]. I forsook natural color for pure color. I had come to feel that the colors of nature cannot be reproduced on canvas. Instinctively I felt that painting had to find a new way to express the beauty of nature.”
Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) first seen 1905 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote of Mondrian about 1905-1910; in 'Mondrian, Essays' ('Plastic art and pure plastic art', 1937 and his other essays, (1941-1943) by Piet Mondrian; Wittenborn-Schultz Inc., New York, 1945, p. 10; as cited in De Stijl…
“In terms of composition the new plasticism is dualistic. Through the exact reconstruction of cosmic relations it is a direct expression of the universal; by its rhythm, by the material reality of its plastic form, it expresses the artist's individual subjectivity. It thus unfolds before us a whole world of universal beauty without thereby renouncing the human element.”
Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) said by 1944 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Philosophers and aestheticians may offer elegant and profound definitions of art and beauty, but for the painter they are all summed up in this phrase: To create a harmony”
Gino Severini (1883–1966) said by 1966 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Clint Brown (1998) Artist to Artist, p. 32
“The pain passes but the beauty remains.”
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) said by 1919 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in: Instituto Nacional de Previsión (Spain) (1974). 6.o Congreso Internacional de Medicina Fisica: 2-6 julio 1974. p. 424
“Great occasions rally great principles, and brace the mind to a lofty bearing, a bearing that is even above itself. But trials that make no occasion at all, leave it to show the goodness and beauty it has in its own disposition. And here precisely is the superhuman glory of Christ as a character, that He is just as perfect, exhibits just as great a spirit in little trials as in great ones.”
Horace Bushnell (1802–1876) said by 1876 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Many a genius has been slow of growth. Oaks that flourish for a thousand years do not spring up into beauty like a reed.”
George Henry Lewes (1817–1878) said by 1878 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is the pain, it is the pain, endures. Your chemic beauty burned my muscles through. Poise of my hands reminded me of yours.”
William Empson (1906–1984) first seen 1928 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Villanelle" (1928), line 1
“Barefoot girl-child weeping at her grandma's door, her disquiet deep: аutumn's limping in. No beauty in a cold heart... the cock won't crow again. "Who are you sorry for, so?" "Everyone," she says.”
Ihor Pavlyuk (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source