Famous quotes
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Beauty
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“I do not know which to prefer, The beauty of inflections Or the beauty of innuendoes, The blackbird whistling Or just after.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I had first caught sight of Matthew I saw the beauty in everything. Now I saw only ugliness and decay. All beauty was in the past. Again and again I wrote in poems, in notes, on scraps of paper. My whole life stretched out gloriously behind me. If I wrote that sick phrase once, I wrote it fifty times. And I believed it, too.”
Stephen Fry (born 1957) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Happiness does away with ugliness, and even makes the beauty of beauty.”
Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881) first seen 1865 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 3 April 1865
“It is the great beauty of our science, chemistry, that advancement in it, whether in a degree great or small, instead of exhausting the subjects of research, opens the doors to further and more abundant knowledge, overflowing with beauty and utility.”
Michael Faraday (1791–1867) first seen 1834 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Experimental Researches in Electricity, Vol. 2 (1834) p. 257
“Supposing I was to tell you that it's just Beauty that's calling me, the beauty of the far off and unknown, the mystery and spell of the East which lures me in the books I've read, the need of the freedom of great wide spaces, the joy of wandering on and on — in quest of the secret which is hidden over there, beyond the horizon?”
Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Health is beauty, and the most perfect health is the most perfect beauty.”
William Shenstone (1714–1763) said by 1763 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He used to say that personal beauty was a better introduction than any letter; but others say that it was Diogenes who gave this description of it, while Aristotle called beauty "the gift of God"; that Socrates called it "a short-lived tyranny"; Theophrastus, "a silent deceit"; Theocritus, "an ivory mischief"; Carneades, "a sovereignty which stood in need of no guards".”
Diogenes Laërtius wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Tertullian
“It is the call of the beauty — robed ones To worship the great Beauty. It is the call of God Through silent intelligences And starburst of feelings.”
Paramahansa Yogananda (1893–1952) said by 1952 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“..that famous idea of 'beauty', which is, as everybody says, the goal of the arts. If it is their only goal, what becomes of the men like Rubens, Rembrandt, and all the northern natures generally, who prefer other qualities? Demand purity, In a word beauty.. .In general the men of the north tend less in that direction. The Italian prefers ornament.”
Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) first seen 1847 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote 1847, as cited in Artists on Art – from the 14th – 20th centuries, ed. by Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, p. 229
“Perfect beauty implies perfect simplicity, a quality that at first sight does not arouse the emotions which we feel before gigantic works, objects whose very disproportion constitutes an element of beauty.”
Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) first seen 1854 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 7 September 1854 (p. 252)
“For beauty called to beauty and there thronged at the enchanter's will The vanished hours of love that burn within the Ever-living still.”
George William Russell (1867–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have wept a million tears: Pure and proud one, where are thine, What the gain though all thy years In unbroken beauty shine? All your beauty cannot win Truth we learn in pain and sighs: You can never enter in To the circle of the wise.”
George William Russell (1867–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let me dream only with my heart, Love first, and after see: Know thy diviner counterpart Before I kneel to thee. So in thy motions all expressed Thy angel I may view: I shall not on thy beauty rest, But Beauty's ray in you.”
George William Russell (1867–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The power of the Latin classic is in character, that of the Greek is in beauty. Now character is capable of being taught, learnt, and assimilated: beauty hardly.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) first seen 1868 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Schools and Universities on the Continent (1868)
“O GAIN that lurk’st ungainèd in all gain! O love we just fall short of in all love! O height that in all heights art still above! O beauty that dost leave all beauty pain! Thou unpossessed that mak’st possession vain,”
Francis Thompson (1859–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am one who tells the truth and exposes evil and seeks with Beauty for Beauty to set the world right.”
W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Lucifer was in Eden as a nice guy, probably for quite a while. Ezekiel tells us that Satan got proud; he was lifted up. He said, "I am a god." He was lifted up because of his wisdom, because of his riches, because of his beauty, and because of his power. The four things that still corrupt people today: wisdom, riches, beauty, and power.”
Kent Hovind (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But beauty vanishes; beauty passes; However rare—rare it be; And when I crumble, who will remember This lady of the West Country?”
Walter de la Mare (1873–1956) said by 1956 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[T]he recognition of the irredeemable vanity and falsity of all beauty and all greatness is itself a kind of beauty and greatness that fills the soul when it is conveyed by a work of genius. And the spectacle of nothingness is itself a thing in these works, and seems to enlarge the reader’s soul, to raise it up and to make it take satisfaction in itself and its despair.”
Giacomo Leopardi (1798–1837) first seen 1820 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 260, 5th October 1820. Translation by Michael Caesar and Franco D'Intino et al. [Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010, ], p. 177
“Sawbeaked epitome of bodiless Idea, tossed by gusts of ether, dive Through abstract mists and raid the sea of fact Eat rich strange fish, grow long bright feathers, press Form's flesh around thought's rib, and so derive From the act of beauty, beauty of the act.”
Philip José Farmer (1918–2009) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Pterodactyl" in Sky Hook #16, (Winter 1952-53); re-published in Pearls From Peoria (2006)
“[W]hat I had been missing... and what Feynman realized: physics is the ultimate intellectual adventure, the quest to understand the deepest mysteries of our Universe. ...[I]t makes us see more clearly, adding to the beauty and wonder of the world ...[T]he lens of physics adds more beauty to the world ...”
Max Tegmark (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Beauty is the maximum limit we can access through language. We cannot reach the truth, but we can get close to it through beauty.”
Alejandro Jodorowsky (born 1929) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In Beauty's dwelling all things fair, And rich, to win her sweet smiles strove; But still young Beauty's only care Was, to watch o'er the lamp of Love.”
Eliza Acton (1799–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ill times may be; she hath no thought of time: She reigns beside the waters yet in pride. Rude voices cry: but in her ears the chime Of full, sad bells brings back her old springtide. Like to a queen in pride of place, she wears The splendour of a crown in Radcliffe's dome. Well fare she, well! As perfect beauty fares; And those high places, that are beauty's home.”
Lionel Johnson (1867–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We may feel bitterly how little our poems can do in the face of seemingly out-of-control technological power and seemingly limitless corporate greed, yet it has always been true that poetry can break isolation, show us to ourselves when we are outlawed or made invisible, remind us of beauty where no beauty seems possible, remind us of kinship where all is represented as separation.”
Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Defy the Space That Separates," The Nation, October 7, 1996
“Oh, is it not enough to be Here with this beauty over me? My throat should ache with praise, and I Should kneel in joy beneath the sky. Oh, beauty are you not enough?”
Sara Teasdale (1884–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To be with child does not diminish beauty, but changes the shape of beauty.”
Edmund Cooper (1926–1982) said by 1982 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Discovery in mathematics is not a matter of logic. It is rather the result of mysterious powers which no one understands, and in which unconscious recognition of beauty must play an important part. Out of an infinity of designs, a mathematician chooses one pattern for beauty's sake and pulls it down to earth.”
Marston Morse (1892–1977) said by 1977 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Art is most simply and most usually defined as an attempt to create pleasing forms. Such forms satisfy our sense of beauty and the sense of beauty is satisfied when we are able to appreciate a unity or harmony of formal relations among our sense-perceptions.”
Herbert Read (1893–1968) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Meaning of Art, London : Faber & Faber, 1931
“There is no beauty in anything rational. Beauty emerges from the unknown, often from the inane, generally irrational, as unforseen combinations.”
Herbert Read (1893–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The garden [of Eden] is the realm of pure beauty from which man is expelled when he becomes interested in ethics, in the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The return into paradise, the homecoming, depends on him penetrating the veils of morality to glimpse again the lineaments of lost beauty.”
John Carroll (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Beauty is a cheap word, but beauty remains priceless.”
Dejan Stojanovic (born 1959) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Many men are intimidated by beauty and prefer to worship it from afar; others are drawn in, but not for the purpose of conversation. The Beauty suffers from isolation.”
Robert Greene (American author) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Beauty means perfect to me, but it also has an additional meaning having to do with being pleasurable, rather than painful. Beauty is hard to make. The making is painful, and involves a certain amount of craft, and a relaxation of the part of the brain that says, "Don't write that. X wrote those four notes in 1542 or 1979 or 1825 or whatever period you are worried about being influenced by.”
Beth Anderson (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I saw a fullness, a brightness with which I felt myself so filled that words fail me, nor can I find anything to compare it with. I cannot tell you that I saw something with a bodily form, but he was as he is in heaven, namely, of such an indescribable beauty that I do not know how to describe it to you except as the Beauty and the All Good.”
Angela of Foligno (1248–1309) said by 1309 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Writing songs has a lot to do with your sexuality. I danced for awhile and just being around that made me realize what people use. And if you grow up blessed with a certain beauty or a certain intelligence that enhances your beauty, you can get into a better position in life.”
Courtney Love (born 1964) first seen 1991 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On songwriting and beauty, The Guardian (December 11, 1991)
“Zest is the secret of all beauty. There is no beauty that is attractive without zest.”
Christian Dior (1905–1957) first seen 1956 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Ladies' Home Journal, April 1956
“Beauty is but the cloak of happiness. Where joy tarries, there also is beauty.”
Ludwig Klages (1872–1956) said by 1956 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Interest. ...a design to be great must have great interest. ...the most potent of all ways to impart interest is to endow the design with beauty of form, and... the one which makes the strongest appeal to human interest and admiration is physical beauty in human shape.”
Ernest Flagg (1857–1947) said by 1947 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We must uphold traditional social values, which do not permit this kind of vulgar display of beauty. I will just not allow any beauty contest to be held in this state.”
Rajnath Singh (born 1951) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On banning beauty pageants, as quoted in "Home State of Miss World Bars Beauty Pageants" Los Angeles Times (16 December 2000)
“Landscapes are about beauty and death. The only way you can define beauty.. ..is to know that death is hiding behind it. This is what haunts you when you’re doing a so-called landscape painting. -”
Per Kirkeby (1938–2018) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: as quoted in Per Kirkeby: Paintings and Drawings, Helaine Posner, exhibition catalogue (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT List Visual Arts Center, 1992
“Very few writers of verse can read their work to keep their listeners aware of the beauty of sense, that sense of beauty from the powerful , delicate ways in which sense is made by poetry.”
John Hollander (1929–2013) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'Poetry' September 1995
“Heaven forbid if beauty were to have substance. Genuine beauty is always meaningless, without virtue.”
Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Take in everything before you and let your eyes be drenched with beauty, and as you love beauty in a reverent way it becomes a sacrament to you.”
Flower A. Newhouse (1909–1994) said by 1994 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Beauty is very much broader than just to the eye. It is our whole, positive response to life. An artist is fortunate in that his work is the inner contemplation of beauty, of perfection in life. We cannot make anything perfectly, but with inner contemplation of perfection, we can suggest it.”
Agnes Martin (1912–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think that’s the beauty of the Olympics. There’s always a story. There’s always someone you’re invested in. There are so many Olympic moments that resonate with people all across Canada, and I think that’s the beauty of it. We’re just one of those stories and we’re grateful for the support we’ve received.”
Tessa Virtue (born 1989) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Tessa Virtue, Interview with Kristina Rutherford for Sportsnet.ca (January 2018)
“The ocean of love, though vast and magnanimous in its beauty, is a treacherous place. It is riddled with strong currents pulling you towards them as you helplessly give in to their force. Drowning under them was my destiny, but floating around to admire the mesmerizing beauty of the corals underwater was my choice, for those depths felt like home—the depths of unrequited love.”
Gaurav Sharma (author) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But we are not destroyers. We are creators. Therefore, let us ardently build the bastions of culture, knowledge of the Living Ethics, and Beauty. Knowledge and Beauty are the foundation and crown of cosmic evolution.”
Helena Roerich (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is the world for you. Beauty, true beauty, is intangible. It is in the eye of the beholder. Something that we can lose at any moment, and the more you examine it, the more illusive it becomes. True happiness is virtue, and virtue is predicated on knowledge and righteous conduct.”
Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1056–1111) said by 1111 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Where I can see an escape from my particular doom spiral is in style as an alternative ideal to beauty. You can be stylish at any age. You can be stylish whether you pass or not. Style is a way of cultivating a personal aesthetic that you have complete control over. It's like art in that originality is a virtue. Style is an individual aesthetic, unlike the collective aesthetic of beauty standards.”
Natalie Wynn (born 1988) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Beauty, published 2019-05-22