Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,161,745 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
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“Ah, music! What a beautiful art! But what a wretched profession!”
Georges Bizet (1838–1875) first seen 1867 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Starement of 3 August 1867, as quoted in An Encyclopedia of Quotations about Music (1981) by Nat Shapiro, p. 115
“Human subtlety...will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature, because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous.”
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) said by 1519 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you transmit the rays of the sun through a hole in the shape of a star you will see a beautiful effect of perspective in the spot where the sun's rays fall.”
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) said by 1519 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Emotional landscapes They puzzle me The riddle gets solved and you push me up to This state of emergency How beautiful to be State of emergency Is where I want to be”
“But we believed if we kept on working, if we kept on marching, if we kept on voting, if we kept on believing, we would make America beautiful for everybody.”
Al Sharpton (born 1954) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was all extremely symbolic; but then, if you choose to think so, nothing in this world is not symbolical. Profound and beautiful truth!”
Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is because we are predominantly purposeful beings that we are perpetually correcting our immediate sensations. But men are free not to be utilitarianly purposeful. They can sometime be artists, for example. In which case they may like to accept the immediate sensation uncorrected, because it happens to be beautiful.”
Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As I was leaving the hotel this morning, a doorman asked me, "Where are you headed, General?" and when I replied, "West Point," he remarked, "Beautiful place. Have you ever been there before?”
Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) said by 1964 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He never forgot that sweet, violent feeling of having touched some great adventure, of having looked for a moment at some beautiful white light that was, in fact, every color of the rainbow.”
Stephen King (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Oh dear Pan and all the other gods of this place, grant that I may be beautiful inside. Let all my external possessions be in friendly harmony with what is within. May I consider the wise man rich. As for gold, let me have as much as a moderate man could bear and carry with him.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The desire to write perfectly of beautiful happenings is, as the saying runs, old as the hills — and as immortal.”
James Branch Cabell (1879–1958) said by 1958 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Some few there must be in every age and every land of whom life claims nothing very insistently save that they write perfectly of beautiful happenings.”
James Branch Cabell (1879–1958) said by 1958 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At what cost, now, may one attempt to write perfectly of beautiful happenings?”
James Branch Cabell (1879–1958) said by 1958 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I was born, I think, with the desire to make beautiful books — brave books that would preserve the glories of the Dream untarnished, and would re-create them for battered people, and re-awaken joy and magnanimity.”
James Branch Cabell (1879–1958) said by 1958 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I advise you all very strongly - go for a run, get some exercise, and have a beautiful day.”
Boris Johnson (born 1964) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Valentine Low, "Shiver me timbers Boris", Evening Standard, 15 November 2004, p. 3.
“Snow is so beautiful, it doesn't have to be useful.”
Richard Stallman (born 1953) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Parliament Hill Speech, Ottawa, Canada, (June 2, 2009)
“What is required of us is that we love the difficult and learn to deal with it. In the difficult are the friendly forces, the hands that work on us. Right in the difficult we must have our joys, our happiness, our dreams: there against the depth of this background, they stand out, there for the first time we see how beautiful they are.”
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Selected Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke (1960)
“What is all that men have done and thought over thousands of years, compared with one moment of love. But in all Nature, too, it is what is nearest to perfection, what is most divinely beautiful! There all stairs lead from the threshold of life. From there we come, to there we go.”
Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843) said by 1843 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was not delight, not wonder that arose among us, it was the peace of heaven. A thousand times have I said it to her and to myself: the most beautiful is also the most sacred. And such was everything in her. Like her singing, even so was her life.”
Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843) said by 1843 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tier on tier of beautiful mountains and streams Blue green vistas locked in white clouds The mist makes my bandana wet Dew coats my grass cape My feet climb in straw sandals My hand holds an old wooden stick When I gaze down again on the dusty world It has become a land of phantoms and dreams to me”
“I sit cross-legged on the rock The valleys and streams are cold and damp Sitting quietly is beautiful The cliffs are lost in mist and fog I rest happily in this place At dusk the tree shadows are low I look into my mind A white lotus emerges from the dark mud”
“I have heard that Glinda is a beautiful woman, who knows how to keep young in spite of the many years she has lived.”
L. Frank Baum (1856–1919) said by 1919 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The whole idea of men creating perfect robot women for their own pleasure, it happens every day. The most "beautiful" women you see in public, none of them are for real. They're just men perpetuating their perverted stereotypes of women. Just the oldest story in the world. There's a penis on every page of Cosmopolitan magazine if you know where to look.”
Chuck Palahniuk (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.”
Lin Yutang (1895–1976) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Trip to Anhwei", in With Love And Irony (1940), p. 145
“It is not when he is working in the office but when he is lying idly on the sand that his soul utters, "Life is beautiful.”
Lin Yutang (1895–1976) said by 1976 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At night in his own bed, Alvin listened to the distant greensong, still warm and beautiful, still bright and hopeful even though the forest was getting so sparse, even though the future was so dim. Cause there's no fear of future in the song of life, just the ever-joyful present moment. That's all I want right now, thought Alvin. The present moment, which is good enough.”
Orson Scott Card (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Peggy chose her words to be true, and therefore beautiful, and therefore good.”
Orson Scott Card (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You're such a liar.” “But I’m a beautiful liar, don’t you think?” She flashed her best smile at her friend. “I don’t understand what men see in women anyway,” her friend answered. “Hexes or no hexes, as long as a woman has her clothes on a man can’t see what he’s interested in anyhow.”
Orson Scott Card (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Here and there, among a thousand other peddlers, are slyly hissing dealers who urge you to come along with them to allegedly "very beautiful" girls, and not only to girls. They keep at it, walk alongside, praising their wares until you answer roughly. They don't know that you have resolved to eat nothing but rice just to escape from sexuality!”
Thomas Mann (1875–1955) first seen 1896 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter from Naples, Italy to Otto Grautoff (1896); as quoted in A Gorgon's Mask: The Mother in Thomas Mann's Fiction (2005) by Lewis A. Lawson, p. 35
“With astonishment Aschenbach noticed that the boy was entirely beautiful. His countenance, pale and gracefully reserved, was surrounded by ringlets of honey-colored hair, and with its straight nose, its enchanting mouth, its expression of sweet and divine gravity, it recalled Greek sculpture of the noblest period.”
Thomas Mann (1875–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A black pall, you know, with a silver cross on it, or R.I.P. — requiescat in pace — you know. That seems to me the most beautiful expression — I like it much better than ‘He is a jolly good fellow,’ which is simply rowdy.”
Thomas Mann (1875–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Love stands opposed to death. It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death. Only love, not reason, gives sweet thoughts. And from love and sweetness alone can form come: form and civilization, friendly, enlightened, beautiful human intercourse — always in silent recognition of the blood sacrifice.”
Thomas Mann (1875–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The intellect longs for the delights of the non-intellect, that which is alive and beautiful dans sa stupidité.”
Thomas Mann (1875–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“O scenes of the beautiful world! Never have you presented yourself to more appreciative eyes.”
Thomas Mann (1875–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I was in love with a beautiful blonde once, dear. She drove me to drink. That's the one thing I'm so indebted to her for. (Variant: 'Twas a woman who drove me to drink. I never had the courtesy to thank her.)”
W. C. Fields (1880–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It's beautiful that abortion is legal in America. I love going to abortion rallies to pick up women, 'cause you know they're fucking. You ain't gonna find a bunch of virgins at the abortion rally. You might even see some clear heels!”
Chris Rock (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He is outside of everything, and an alien everywhere. He is an aesthetic solitary. His beautiful, light imagination is the wing that on the autumn evening just brushes the dusky window.”
Henry James (1843–1916) first seen 1897 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Nathaniel Hawthorne" in Library of the World's Best Literature, vol. XII (1897), ed. Charles Dudley Warner
“We must know, as much as possible, in our beautiful art...what we are talking about — and the only way to know is to have lived and loved and cursed and floundered and enjoyed and suffered. I think I don't regret a single "excess" of my responsive youth — I only regret, in my chilled age, certain occasions and possibilities I didn't embrace.”
Henry James (1843–1916) first seen 1913 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Hugh Walpole (21 August 1913)
“Summer afternoon — summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.”
Henry James (1843–1916) said by 1916 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted by Edith Wharton, A Backward Glance (1934), ch. 10
“To see deep difficulty braved is at any time, for the really addicted artist, to feel almost even as a pang the beautiful incentive, and to feel it verily in such sort as to wish the danger intensified. The difficulty most worth tackling can only be for him, in these conditions, the greatest the case permits of.”
Henry James (1843–1916) said by 1916 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He was not far wrong who said that, for choice, he would be a beautiful woman from seventeen to thirty, a successful General from thirty to fifty, and a Cardinal for the rest of his days. But of course he was thinking of Cardinals as they were in the days of Leo X, Julius II, and Sextus V, not as they are today, extremely pious and rather pinched for means.”
Alfred Austin (1835–1913) said by 1913 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Older people are most beautiful when they have what is lacking in the young: poise, , wisdom, , and this post-heroic absence of agitation.”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (born 1960) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Basic would never have surfaced because there was always a language better than Basic for that purpose. That language was Joss, which predated Basic and was beautiful. But Basic happened to be on a GE timesharing system that was done by Dartmouth, and when GE decided to franchise that, it started spreading Basic around just because it was there, not because it had any intrinsic merits whatsoever.”
Alan Kay (born 1940) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: ACM Queue A Conversation with Alan Kay Vol. 2, No. 9 - Dec/Jan 2004-2005
“I never knew a writer's wife who wasn't beautiful.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Many people found our house spooky, and the attic in fact as full of evil when I was born. It housed a collection of more than three hundred antique and modern firearms. Father had bought them during his and Mother's six-month honeymoon in Europe in 1922. Father thought them beautiful, but they might as well have been copperheads and rattlesnakes. They were murder.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You know, it doesn't really matter what the media writes as long as you've got a young and beautiful piece of ass.”
Donald Trump (born 1946) first seen 1991 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Esquire Interview (1991)
“Well, I think that she's got a lot of Marla [Maples, Trump's second wife], she's a really beautiful baby, and she's got Marla's legs. We don't know whether she's got this part yet [gestures toward own chest], but time will tell...”
Donald Trump (born 1946) first seen 1994 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On his then-one year old daughter Tiffany, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, 1994
“I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”
Donald Trump (born 1946) first seen 2002 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Jeffrey Epstein. Quoted in New York, 28 October 2002.
“Belgium is a beautiful city.”
Donald Trump (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source