Famous quotes
Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,159,190 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatina
Beauty
LoveFriendshipHappinessHopeFearCourageDeathLifeTimeWarPeaceFreedomTruthWisdomKnowledgeScienceArtMusicNatureMoneyWorkPowerGodBeautyLaughterFamilySuccess and failureChangeDreamsBooks and reading
“Man pays deference to woman instinctively, involuntarily, not because she is beautiful, or truthful, or wise, or foolish, or proper, but because she is woman, and he can not help it. If she descends, he will lower to her level; if she rises, he will rise to her height.”
Mary Abigail Dodge (1833–1896) said by 1896 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Don Quixote thought he could have made beautiful bird-cages and toothpicks if his brain had not been so full of ideas of chivalry. Most people would succeed in small things, if they were not troubled with great ambitions.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And both were young, and one was beautiful.”
Lord Byron (1788–1824) said by 1824 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And they were canopied by the blue sky, So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful That God alone was to be seen in heaven.”
Lord Byron (1788–1824) said by 1824 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My mother Earth! And thou fresh breaking Day, and you, ye Mountains, Why are ye beautiful? I cannot love ye. And thou, the bright eye of the universe, That openest over all, and unto all Art a delight—thou shin'st not on my heart.”
Lord Byron (1788–1824) said by 1824 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The stars are forth, the moon above the tops Of the snow-shining mountains. Beautiful! I linger yet with Nature, for the Night Hath been to me a more familiar face Than that of man; and in her starry shade Of dim and solitary loveliness, I learn'd the language of another world.”
Lord Byron (1788–1824) said by 1824 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A happy youth, and their old age Is beautiful and free.”
William Wordsworth (1770–1850) first seen 1799 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Fountain, st. ?? (1799)
“The infinite, absolute character of Virtue has passed into a finite, conditional one; it is no longer a worship of the Beautiful and Good; but a calculation of the Profitable.”
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) said by 1881 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To this man life is already as earnest and awful, and beautiful and terrible, as death.”
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) said by 1881 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And wonderful it is to see how the Ideal or Soul, place it in what ugliest Body you may, will irradiate said Body with its own nobleness; will gradually, incessantly, mould, modify, new-form or reform said ugliest Body, and make it at last beautiful, and to a certain degree divine!”
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) said by 1881 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How beautiful is death, when earn'd by virtue! Who would not be that youth? What pity is it That we can die but once to serve our country!”
Joseph Addison (1672–1719) said by 1719 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You shall see them on a beautiful quarto page, where a neat rivulet of text shall meander through a meadow of margin.”
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816) first seen 1777 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: ‘The School for Scandal’ (1777) act 1, sc. 1
“Does anything genuinely beautiful need supplementing? No more than justice does—or truth, or kindness, or humility. Are any of those improved by being praised? Or damaged by contempt? Is an emerald suddenly flawed if no one admires it? Or gold, or ivory, or purple? Lyres? Knives? Flowers? Bushes? (Hays translation)”
Marcus Aurelius (121–180) said by 180 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Disobedience without civility, discipline, discrimination, non-violence, is certain destruction. Disobedience combined with love is the living water of life. Civil disobedience is a beautiful variant to signify growth, it is not discordance which spells death.”
Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Young India (1 May 1922)
“For me the different religions are beautiful flowers from the same garden, or they are branches of the same majestic tree. Therefore they are equally true, though being received and interpreted through human instruments equally imperfect.”
Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) first seen 1937 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Harijan, 30-1-1937, p. 407; In: My God (1962), Chapter 13. Pathways of God, Printed and Published by: Jitendra T. Desai, Navajivan Mudranalaya, Ahemadabad-380014 India
“I wonder what your idea of heaven would be — A beautiful vacuum filled with wealthy monogamists. All powerful and members of the best families all drinking themselves to death. And hell would probably be an ugly vacuum full of poor polygamists unable to obtain booze or with chronic stomach disorders that they called secret sorrows.”
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) first seen 1917 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald (1 July 1925); published in Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917–1961 (1981) edited by Carlos Baker
“As a Nobel Prize winner I cannot but regret that the award was never given to Mark Twain, nor to Henry James, speaking only of my own countrymen. Greater writers than these also did not receive the prize. I would have been happy — happier — today if the prize had been given to that beautiful writer Isak Dinesen.”
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) first seen 1954 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The New York Times Book Review (7 November 1954)
“You're beautiful, like a May fly.”
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement to his future wife Mary Welsh, recalled in her obituaries (26 November 1986)
“Then they were walking along the stream together and he said, “Maria, I love thee and thou art so lovely and so wonderful and so beautiful and it does such things to me to be with thee that I feel as though I wanted to die when I am loving thee.” “Oh,” she said. “I die each time. Do you not die?” “No. Almost. But did thee feel the earth move?” “Yes. As I died. Put thy arm around me, please.”
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In Africa a thing is true at first light and a lie by noon and you have no more respect for it than for the lovely, perfect wood-fringed lake you see across the sun-baked salt plain. You have walked across that plain in the morning and you know that no such lake is there. But now it is there absolutely true, beautiful and believable.”
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ugly. Is irrelevant. It is an immeasurable insult to a woman, and then supposedly the worst crime you can commit as a woman. But ugly, as beautiful, is an illusion. A matter of taste, a whim, an eye, a beholder, an opinion, a spin, light crossing the frame, paint, projection. The moment. Context.”
Margaret Cho (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...India belongs not to Punjabis, Biharis, Gujaratis, Madrasis, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Christians, but to those beautiful creatures—peacocks, elephants, tigers, bears…" (p172)”
Arundhati Roy (born 1961) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Just as, out of habit, one consults a run-down clock as though it were still going, so too one may look at the face of a beautiful woman as though she were still in love.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) said by 1832 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Above all, try always to be able to feel deeply any injustice committed against any person in any part of the world. It is the most beautiful quality of a revolutionary.”
Che Guevara (1928–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I like to walk about amidst the beautiful things that adorn the world; but private wealth I should decline, or any sort of personal possessions, because they would take away my liberty.”
George Santayana (1863–1952) said by 1952 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Just as eunuchs will never know aesthetics as applied to the selection of beautiful women, so neither will pure rationalists ever know ethics, nor will they ever succeed in defining happiness, for happiness is a thing that is lived and felt, not a thing that is reasoned or defined.”
Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful — a faery's child, Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild.”
John Keats (1795–1821) said by 1821 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Why is art beautiful? Because it's useless. Why is life ugly? Because it's all ends and purposes and intentions.”
Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They were two and beautiful and wanted to be something else; love delayed itself to them in the tedium of the future, and regret of what would happen to be was already being the daughter of the love they hadn't had.”
Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Since I wasn’t able to leave a succession of beautiful lies, I want to leave the smidgen of truth that the falsehood of everything lets us suppose we can tell.”
Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[On fully transitioning to being a woman via surgery] If I looked beautiful, like Julian Clary, then maybe I would do it. But the way I look, everyone would know I was a bloke who had had a sex change. Besides, it would confuse things because I like girls.”
Eddie Izzard (born 1962) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From an interview, as cited in "I'm all boy", The Telegraph (30 July 2006)
“In all God's providences, it is good to compare His word and His works together; for we shall find a beautiful harmony between them, and that they mutually illustrate each other.”
Matthew Henry (1662–1714) said by 1714 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them. How can we ever be satisfied without them until our feelings are deadened?”
George Eliot (1819–1880) said by 1880 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hope, frail but lovely shadow ! thou dost come, Like a bright vision on our pathway here, Making the gloomy future beautiful, And gilding our horizon with a light, The fairest human eye can ever know.”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) said by 1838 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How innocent, how beautiful thy sleep ! Sweet one, 'tis peace and joy to gaze on thee!”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) said by 1838 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Love is like the glass, That throws its own rich colour over all, And makes all beautiful.”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) said by 1838 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How I pity those whose childhood has been unhappy! to them one of the sweetest springs of feeling has been utterly denied, the most green and beautiful part of life laid waste.”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) said by 1838 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The first, the very first; oh! none Can feel again as they have done; In love, in war, in pride, in all The planets of life's coronal, However beautiful or bright,— What can be like their first sweet light?”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) said by 1838 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Beautiful language! Love's peculiar, own, But only to the spring and summer known.”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) said by 1838 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On the horizon is a star, Its earliest, loveliest one by far ; A blush is yet upon the sky, As if too beautiful to die,— A last gleam of the setting sun, Like hope when love has just begun ;”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) said by 1838 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Beautiful weakness! oh, if weak, That woman's heart should tinge her cheek! 'Tis sad to change it for the strength That heart and cheek must know at length.”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) said by 1838 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They see the mortal maiden ride In honour by the chieftan's side, So beautiful, so free from sin, Worthy was she such boon to win : The spirit race that floated round Were not more pure, more stainless found”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) said by 1838 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How much I loved the painter's glorious art, which forms A world like, but more beautiful than this; Just catching nature in her happiest mood!”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) said by 1838 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The bride was young and beautiful, the bridegroom stern and old,— But the silken rein was hung with pearls, the housings bright with gold.”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) said by 1838 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The apple blossoms' shower of pearl, The pear tree's rosier hue, As beautiful as woman's blush, As evanescent too.”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) said by 1838 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A light is gone from yonder sky, A star has left its sphere; The beautiful--and do they die In yon bright world as here? Will that star leave a lonely place, A darkness on the night?— No; few will miss its lovely face, And none think heaven less bright!”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) first seen 1828 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Lost Star from The Literary Souvenir, 1828
“THE quiet of the evening hour Was laid on every summer leaf; That purple shade was on each flower, At once so beautiful, so brief, Only the aspen knew not rest, But still, with an unquiet song, Kept murmuring to the gentle west, And cast a changeful shade along.”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) first seen 1830 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Aspen Tree from The London Literary Gazette (21st August 1830)
“It was a beautiful embodied thought, A dream of the fine painter, one of those That pass by moonlight o'er the soul, and flit 'Mid the dim shades of twilight, when the eye Grows tearful with its ecstasy.”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) first seen 1822 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1st June 1822) Poetic Sketches. Second Series - Sketch the Fifth. Mr. Martin’s Picture of Clytie
“Beautiful and radiant May, Is not this thy festal day ? Is not this spring revelry Held in honour, Queen, of thee ?”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) first seen 1823 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (3rd May 1823) Poetical Catalogue of Paintings - On May-day, by Leslie
“God ! that this Earth should be so beautiful, And yet so wretched !”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) first seen 1824 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (28th April 1824) Moonlight. T. C. Hofland.