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Beauty

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“It was beauty that needed preserving, whether it lay in a forest, a field, or a city street. Whether it was the workings of a plant, from seed to new growth to mulch, or the workings of some complex machine. There was room for everything in the world, so long as men remembered the beauty.”
Charles de Lint (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sidi feels empowered by seeing her beauty for the first time in the magazine prints. She recognizes that her beauty is a commodity, allowing her agency to make a future for herself. This is a novel idea: choosing one's own future is reserved for men.”
Wole Soyinka (born 1934) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Order the beauty even of beauty is, It is the rule of bliss, The very life and form and cause of pleasure.”
Thomas Traherne (1636–1674) said by 1674 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Vision", stanza 2; The Poetical Works of Thomas Traherne, B.D. (London: Bertram Dobell, 1903) p. 20.
“Beauty of the face is the outward charm of a human being, and the beauty of soul is his inner charm.”
Hasan al-Askari (845–874) said by 874 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The world of architecture – and of works conceived for architecture – tends towards beauty. True beauty tends towards ugliness and panic.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: short quotes, May 1972; p. 87
“[S]ome scientists focus on ideal beauty, others on empirical truth. My own approach, following a great tradition going back to Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler, has been to use beauty as a guide to truth.”
Frank Wilczek (born 1951) first seen 2020 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Beautiful, Impractical Physics" (Oct. 29, 2020) The Wall Street Journal.
“The truly modern artist is aware of abstraction in an emotion of beauty; he is conscious of the fact that the emotion of beauty is cosmic, universal. This conscious recognition has for its corollary an abstract plasticism, for man adheres only to what is universal.”
Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) said by 1944 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now it seems to me that we are in a universalising period.. .If we are to have world peace, we should have an understanding of all the idioms of beauty because the members of humanity who have created these idioms of beauty are going to be a part of us. And I would say that we are in a period when we are discovering and becoming acquainted with these idioms for the first time.”
Mark Tobey (1890–1976) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Modern Artists in America, R. Motherwell, A. Reinhardt and B. Karpel, First series, New York 1952, p. 28
“I have always striven to fix beauty in wood, stone, glass or pottery, in oil or watercolor by using whatever seemed fittest for the expression of beauty, that has been my creed.”
Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848–1933) first seen 1916 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Art Work of Louis C. Tiffany (Doubleday, Page & Co New York, 1916)
“The immense beauty, the vast almost unbearable beauty of justice.”
Martin Firrell (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Religious beauty is superior to ideal beauty, since it is the ideal of the ideal.”
Joseph de Maistre (1753–1821) said by 1821 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Dodgson was overcome by the beauty of Cologne Cathedral. I found him leaning against the rails of the Choir and sobbing like a child. When the verger came to show us over the chapels behind the Choir, he got out of the way, he said that he could not bear the harsh voice of the man in the presence of so much beauty.”
Henry Liddon (1829–1890) first seen 1867 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Russian Journal (1867), ed. Morton Cohen (1979), p. 13.
“The moments of perfect pleasure in Johnson's songs, and the beauty of those songs, remind one that it is not the simple presence of evil that is unbearable; what is unbearable is the impossibility of reconciling the facts of evil with the beauty of the world.”
Greil Marcus (born 1945) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Marcus on Robert Johnson in Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll Music (1975, fourth revision May, 1997) p. 31.
“[About the end of the The L Word] Everything has its cycle. I think it’s appropriate for us to be ending now. But the beauty of storytelling, and the beauty of film and television is that it continues on.”
Jennifer Beals (born 1963) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The L Word Finale Special (8 March 2009).
“Gratitude enhances your ability to see beauty. It's like seeing beauty in HD.”
Steve Maraboli (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Paint upon a palette, delighting our eyes with soul-satisfying pictures, a treasure of well set jewels a sympathy with growing things, fashioned into a dream of beauty, a place of perfect rest and refreshment of mind and body. This sense of beauty is a gift of God.”
Gertrude Jekyll (1843–1932) said by 1932 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She thought of herself as an ugly duckling, but she walked in beauty in the ghettos of the world, bringing with her the reminder of her beloved St. Francis, "It is in the giving that we receive." And wherever she walked beauty was forever there.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Paying tribute to the late Eleanor Roosevelt in a speech to the Democratic National Convention, Atlantic City, New Jersey (27 August 1964); as quoted in Adlai Stevenson (1966) by Lillian Ross, p. 28; reproduced in Ameri…
“Academic training in beauty is a sham. We have been deceived... The beauties of the Parthenon, Venuses, Nymphs, Narcissuses are so many lies. Art is not the application of a canon of beauty but what the instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon.”
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) first seen 1968 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Herschel Browning Chip (1968, p. 271), quoted in Chipp (1978, 266); As cited in: Constance Milbrath (1998), Patterns of Artistic Development in Children, p. 257.
“[U]gliness of the right sort is a kind of beauty. It has some of the best qualities of beauty—it attracts observation and fixes the memory.”
Jean Ingelow (1820–1897) said by 1897 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies.”
John Donne (1572–1631) said by 1631 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," — that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
John Keats (1795–1821) said by 1821 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Human feeling is like the mighty rivers that bless the earth: it does not wait for beauty — it flows with resistless force and brings beauty with it.”
George Eliot (1819–1880) said by 1880 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. Music is the best…”
Frank Zappa (1940–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I died for Beauty – but was scarce Adjusted in the Tomb, When One who died for Truth, was lain In an adjoining Room – He questioned softly "Why I failed"? "For Beauty," I replied. "And I – for Truth, – Themself are One – We Brethren, are", He said –”
Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) said by 1886 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I want the respect of intelligent men but I will choose for myself the intelligent. I love art but I decide for myself what is art. I adore beauty but only my own soul shall tell me what is beauty. I worship God but I define and describe God for myself. I am an individual. The pleasure of my own heart shall be first to inform me when I have done good work.”
Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) first seen 1917 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Egoism" as quoted by Amy Lowell, "Edgar Lee Masters and Carl Sandburg," Tendencies in Modern American Poetry (1917)
“I thought of your beauty, and this arrow, Made out of a wild thought, is in my marrow. There's no man may look upon her, no man, As when newly grown to be a woman, Tall and noble but with face and bosom Delicate in colour as apple blossom. This beauty's kinder, yet for a reason I could weep that the old is out of season.”
William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) said by 1939 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As for the beauty of the gods, not even Hermes tried to describe it in his tale; he said that it transcended description, and must be comprehended by the eye of the mind; for in words it was hard to portray and impossible to convey to mortal ears. Never indeed will there be or appear an orator so gifted that he could describe such surpassing beauty as shines forth on the countenance of the gods.”
Julian (emperor) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To those who do not know mathematics it is difficult to get across a real feeling as to the beauty, the deepest beauty, of nature. ... If you want to learn about nature, to appreciate nature, it is necessary to understand the language that she speaks in.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You say that in heaven there is eternal beauty. The eternal beauty is here and now, not in heaven.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Did you appreciate that each column of the Parthenon makes a very slight inward incline, so that if projected upward into space they would eventually steeple themselves together at a symmetrical point in the empyrean? The “rightness” is located somewhere between the beauty of science and the science of beauty.”
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Lovely Stones” (2009)
“We delight in the beauty of butterfly, rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty”
Maya Angelou (1928–2014) said by 2014 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may.”
Plato (429–349 BC) said by 349 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Beauty, the splendour of truth, is a gracious presence when the imagination contemplates intensely the truth of its own being or the visible world, and the spirit which proceeds out of truth and beauty is the holy spirit of joy. These are realities and these alone give and sustain life.”
James Joyce (1882–1941) first seen 1902 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: James Clarence Mangan" (1902)
“There is an unparalleled beauty inside. When you are in that place, you realize that you are never alone. When the whole world gives up on you, you can turn inside. When you are ready to give up on the whole world, you can turn inside. When you want to be with the whole world, you can still go inside and experience this beauty. Nothing ever changes in there.”
Prem Rawat (born 1957) first seen 1982 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Miami Beach, Florida USA 1982
“Science was a social construct, but it was also and most importantly its own space, conforming to reality only; that was its beauty. Truth is beauty, as the poet had said, speaking of science. And it was; the poet had been right (they weren’t always).”
Kim Stanley Robinson (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Why is everyone here so happy except me?" "Because they have learned to see goodness and beauty everywhere," said the Master. "Why don't I see goodness and beauty everywhere?" "Because you cannot see outside of you what you fail to see inside.”
Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Music should humbly seek to please; within these limits great beauty may perhaps be found. Extreme complication is contrary to art. Beauty must appeal to the senses, must provide us with immediate enjoyment, must impress us or insinuate itself into us without any effort on our part.”
Claude Debussy (1862–1918) said by 1918 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in French Music : From the Death of Berlioz to the Death of Fauré (1951) by Martin Cooper, p. 136, and in Debussy and Wagner (1979) by Robin Holloway, p. 207
“A beauty is not suddenly in a circle. It comes with rapture. A great deal of beauty is rapture. A circle is a necessity. Otherwise you would see no one. We each have our circle.”
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) first seen 1920 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Circular Play," from Last Operas and Plays (1949) [written in 1920]
“How odd, he thought, that one could get used to beauty [i.e. in one's wife]. Once he had thought that any price would be worth paying if he could possess it, know it to be exclusively his, feed on it, be comforted, exalted, even sanctified by it. But you couldn't possess beauty any more than you could possess another human being.”
P. D. James (1920–2014) first seen 1998 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch.8 - at p.99 [Page numbers per the Penguin Books 1998 paperback edition.]
“I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician: he is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him like a fairy tale. We should not allow it to be believed that all scientific progress can be reduced to mechanisms, machines, gearings, even though such machinery has its own beauty.”
Marie Curie (1867–1934) said by 1934 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Today in science history(September 19, 2026)
“So extravagant is Nature with her choicest treasures, spending plant beauty as she spends sunshine, pouring it forth into land and sea, garden and desert. And so the beauty of lilies falls on angels and men, bears and squirrels, wolves and sheep, birds and bees,... .”
John Muir (1838–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No synonym for God is so perfect as Beauty. Whether as seen carving the lines of the mountains with glaciers, or gathering matter into stars, or planning the movements of water, or gardening — still all is Beauty!”
John Muir (1838–1914) first seen 1875 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 26 June 1875, page 208
“The beauty ideal. Every society has promoted a certain ideal of beauty over all others. What that ideal is is unimportant, for any ideal leaves the majority out; ideals, by definition, are modelled on rare qualities.”
Shulamith Firestone (1945–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All we have, it seems to me, is the beauty of art and nature and life, and the love which that beauty inspires.”
Edward Abbey (1927–1989) said by 1989 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There's beauty, heartbreaking beauty, everywhere.”
Edward Abbey (1927–1989) said by 1989 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let beauty be your end. Why should you mint beauty into gold? Anyway, you can’t.”
Jack London (1876–1916) said by 1916 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In spite of all the refinements of civilization that conspired to make art – the dizzying perfection of the string quartet or the sprawling grandeur of Fragonard's canvases – beauty was savage. It was as dangerous and lawless as the earth had been eons before man had one single coherent thought in his head or wrote codes of conduct on tablets of clay. Beauty was a Savage Garden.”
Anne Rice (1941–2021) said by 2021 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I know the first film I ever saw — it must have been some time in 1924, when I was six or so... was Black Beauty. About a stallion. I still recall a sequence with fire. It was burning, I remember that vividly. And I remember too how it excited me, and how afterwards we bought the book of Black Beauty and how I learned the chapter on the fire by heart — at that time I still hadn't learned to read.”
Ingmar Bergman (1918–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am not afraid of being thought a sentimentalist when I stand here tonight and tell you that I believe natural beauty has a necessary place in the spiritual development of any individual or any society. I believe that whenever we destroy beauty, or whenever we substitute something man-made and artificial for a natural feature of the earth, we have retarded some part of man's spiritual growth.”
Rachel Carson (1907–1964) said by 1964 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Beauty is momentary in the mind — The fitful tracing of a portal; But in the flesh it is immortal. The body dies; the body's beauty lives. So evenings die, in their green going, A wave, interminably flowing. So gardens die, their meek breath scenting The cowl of winter, done repenting. So maidens die, to the auroral Celebration of a maiden's choral.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source