Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,161,747 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
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“Music I heard with you was more than music, And bread I broke with you was more than bread; Now that I am without you, all is desolate; All that was once so beautiful is dead.”
Conrad Aiken (1889–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A small but brilliant advance made today by someone’s awareness may for the moment reach a very small audience, but insofar as it’s valid and beautiful, it will make its way and become part of the whole world of consciousness. So in that sense it’s all working toward this huge audience, and all working toward a better man.”
Conrad Aiken (1889–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To be rid of our individuality, which is our will, which is our effort⎯⎯⎯to live effortless, a kind of curious sleep⎯⎯⎯that is very beautiful, I think; that is our after-life⎯⎯⎯our immortality.”
D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) said by 1930 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Live more and more in the Present, which is ever beautiful and stretches away beyond the limits of the past and the future.”
Meher Baba (1894–1969) said by 1969 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A first reading of the "Bhagwat Gita" reveals that it preaches a gospel of complete detachment. A more intensified reading confirms this opinion but reveals some really beautiful verses which require careful understanding and implementation.”
Peter de Noronha (1897–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When the Artist rises high enough to achieve the Beautiful, the symbol by which he makes it perceptible to mortal senses becomes of little value in his eyes, while his spirit possesses itself in the enjoyment of the reality.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) first seen 1851 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Hawthorne and His Mosses" (1851) by Herman Melville
“Only get rid altogether of your nonsensical trash about the beautiful, which I nor anybody else, nor yourself to boot, could ever understand,—only free yourself of that, and your success in life is as sure as daylight.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) said by 1864 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sometimes you need a cigarette. Like after you have sex with a beautiful woman or a confused young man.”
Dave Attell (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It seems that scientists are often attracted to beautiful theories in the way that insects are attracted to flowers — not by logical deduction, but by something like a sense of smell.”
Steven Weinberg (1933–2021) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Physics Today (November 2005) page 35
“The herculean task of a photographer is to capture a momentary frame as beautiful in reality, as it would be in a dream.”
Ansel Adams (1902–1984) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Radio interview, 1972
“For me the future of the image is going to be in electronic form. … You will see perfectly beautiful images on an electronic screen. And I'd say that would be very handsome. They would be almost as close as the best reproductions.”
Ansel Adams (1902–1984) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with Paul Hill (March 1975), published in P. Hill & T.J. Cooper (1979), Dialogue with Photography
“I would never apologize for photographing rocks. Rocks can be very beautiful. But, yes, people have asked why I don’t put people into my pictures of the natural scene. I respond, “There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer.” That usually doesn’t go over at all.”
Ansel Adams (1902–1984) said by 1984 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nefertiti is like Athena born from the brow of Zeus, a head-heavy armored goddess. She is beautiful but desexed.”
Camille Paglia (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Life is beautiful in all its colors, even the darker ones, they’re here for a reason.”
Chris Martin (born 1977) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the Live 2012 concert documentary.
“I would like to have been present, if I could have my choice of all moments in music history, when Stokowski suddenly became conscious of his beautiful hands. That must have been a moment. Like stout Cortez [sic] on a peak in Darien (I know it was Balboa) he saw before him a limitless expanse, a whole uncharted sea that might be subjected to his influence, free from the encumbrance of a baton.”
Oscar Levant (1906–1972) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In "Music in Aspic," Harper's Magazine (October 1939) and A Smattering of Ignorance (1940); as quoted by Ray C. B. Brown in "Lightning Wit Plays On American Musical Scene; Oscar Levant Answers Unspoken Request for 'Info…
“At present, I am a poet trying to be a soldier. To tell the truth, I am not interested in writing nowadays, except in so far as writing is the expression of something beautiful … The only sort of book I care to write about the war is the sort people will read after the war is over — a century after it is over.”
Joyce Kilmer (1886–1918) first seen 1918 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A letter home, included in Joyce Kilmer, Poems, Essays and Letters (1918) edited by Robert Holliday
“It seems appropriate to me to state According to a venerable and agreeable custom, That I love a beautiful lady. Her eyes, Monsignore, Are so blue that they put lovely little blue reflections On everything that she looks at, Such as a wall Or the moon Or my heart.”
Joyce Kilmer (1886–1918) said by 1918 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was too anthropomorphic to consider the lifecycle of a star as some analogy of human birth, life and death. A star was a construct of physical processes; the evolution it went through was simply a search for equilibrium stages between changing, opposing forces. There was no life or death involved, no loss or gain: just process. Why shouldn’t it be beautiful?”
Stephen Baxter (born 1957) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wit can be beautiful, because it expresses and distils an idea.”
Stephen Fry (born 1957) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the subject of criteria he used to judge in The Most Beautiful Tweet contest, Hay Festival 2010
“Passion is like the lightning, it is beautiful, and it links the earth to heaven, but alas it blinds and kills!”
H. Rider Haggard (1856–1925) said by 1925 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For what man is there who does not prize that gift most rare and beautiful, that one perfect thing which no gold can buy – a woman's unfeigned love?”
H. Rider Haggard (1856–1925) said by 1925 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thank you, o can opener, for this can which you are about to open. You are truly a beautiful can opener, and though I am not worthy of you, I love you.”
Darby Conley (born 1970) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Groovitude, page 217 and daily strip for December 26, 2000
“I enjoyed talking to her, but thought nothing of her writing. I considered her "a beautiful little knitter".”
Edith Sitwell (1887–1964) first seen 1955 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Describing Virginia Woolf in a letter to Geoffrey Singleton (11 July 1955); John Lehmann and Derek Palmer, eds., Selected Letters (1970)
“The King of China's daughter So beautiful to see With her face like yellow water, left Her nutmeg tree. Her little rope for skipping She kissed and gave it me — Made of painted notes of singing-birds Among the fields of tea. I skipped across the nutmeg grove, — I skipped across the sea; But neither sun nor moon, my dear, Has yet caught me.”
Edith Sitwell (1887–1964) said by 1964 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To be beautiful is enough. If a woman can do that well, who shall demand more from her? You don't want a rose to sing.”
William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863) said by 1863 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you want a golden rule that will fit everybody, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”
William Morris (1834–1896) first seen 1878 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Beauty of Life", a lecture before the Birmingham Society of Arts and School of Design (19 February 1880), later published in Hopes and Fears for Art: Five Lectures Delivered in Birmingham, London, and Nottingham, 18…
“At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled them and still love this beautiful land. The white man will never be alone.”
Chief Seattle (1786–1866) said by 1866 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I sleep poorly. This long abstinence is destroying me. My nature needs frequent contacts with the beautiful gender. I don't understand how priests can live like this.”
Leopold II of Belgium (1835–1909) first seen 1861 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Leopold II, Het hele Verhaal, Johan Op De Beeck Horizon, 2020 Prince Leopold II in a letter to his father Leopold I on may 1861 when recovering from a cold on vacation in villa Solitude in Austria complaining how he mis…
“I have no other desire than to leave Belgium bigger, stronger and more beautiful.”
Leopold II of Belgium (1835–1909) first seen 1865 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pierre Vercauteren: A king unjustly maligned. (Page 18) Leopold II on the evening of his accession in 1865 confided to the baron Lambermont. Léopold II, Count Louis de Lichtervelde (p.55).
Also quoted by: Auguste, Baron Lambermont
“But why should we hear about body bags and deaths, and how many, what day it's gonna happen, and how many this or that or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it's not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that, and watch him (her husband, former president George H. W. Bush) suffer?”
Barbara Bush (1925–2018) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Addressing the question of how much television news she'd recently been watching, in light of the enormous media attention given to likely outcomes in a U.S. war with Iraq. The interview took place two days prior to the…
“God... your book is beautiful!”
Ken Kesey (1935–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I went to Sunday School and liked the stories about Christ and the Christmas star. They were beautiful. They made you warm and happy to think about. But I didn't believe them. The Sunday School teacher talked too much in the way our grade school teacher used to when she told us about George Washington. Pleasant, pretty stories, but not true.”
Frances Farmer (1913–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The wiser you get on the inside, the uglier you get on the outside. The world's great gurus have beautiful things to say but they generally look like shit.”
Grace Slick (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She went away, she cut me like a knife. Hello beautiful thing, maybe you could save my life. In just a glance, down here on magic street, Loves a fool's dance And I ain't got much sense, but I still got my feet.”
Bruce Springsteen (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My father said "Son, we're lucky in this town. It's a beautiful place to be born. It just wraps its arms around you. Nobody crowds you, nobody goes it alone. That you know flag flying over the courthouse Means certain things are set in stone: Who we are, what we'll do and what we won't.”
Bruce Springsteen (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Belief is a beautiful armor But makes for the heaviest sword. Like punching underwater, You never can hit who you're trying for. Some need the exhibition And some have to know they tried, It's the chemical weapon for the war that's ragin' on inside.”
John Mayer (born 1977) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In New York, you are constantly faced with this very urgent decision that you have to make, about every twenty minutes...you have to decide, immediately, you have to go "Ohmigod. Do I look at the most beautiful woman in the world or the craziest guy in the world?”
David Cross (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Rubin, I am not of your world. I've spent all my life in prison. When I was a child, I was an orphan and too ugly to be adopted. Now I am too beautiful to be set free.”
Charles Manson (1934–2017) first seen 1971 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted by Jerry Rubin in recounting his visit with Manson in We Are Everywhere (1971)
“Life is a beautiful struggle People search through the rubble for a suitable hussle Some people using their noodle Some people using their muscle Some people put it all together make it fit like a puzzle”
Talib Kweli (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every single one of us is a little civilization built on the ruins of any number of preceding civilizations, but with our own variant notions of what is beautiful and what is acceptable – which, I hasten to add, we generally do not satisfy and by which we struggle to live.”
Marilynne Robinson (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Love: The delightful interval between meeting a beautiful girl and discovering that she looks like a haddock.”
John Barrymore (1882–1942) said by 1942 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How beautiful it is when goodness succeeds badness; and how unappealing it is when evil succeeds goodness.”
Muhammad al-Baqir (677–733) said by 733 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am the entertainer, I've come to do my show You've heard my latest record, it's been on the radio It took me years to write it, they were the best years of my life It was a beautiful song but it ran too long If you're gonna have a hit you gotta make it fit So they cut it down to 3:05.”
Billy Joel (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was a beautiful day, the sun beat down; I had the radio on, I was drivin'. The trees went by, me and Del were singin', Little runaway, I was flyin'.Yeah runnin' down a dream That never would come to me. Workin' on a mystery, goin' wherever it leads. I'm runnin' down a dream.”
Tom Petty (1950–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Decoration Day is the most beautiful of our national holidays.[…] The grim cannon have turned into palm branches, and the shell and shrapnel into peach blossoms.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To work is to transform or move things or creatures in ways that will render them more useful or more beautiful; it is also to study the laws governing these transformations, formulate them or apply them.”
André Maurois (1885–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“From "Beware of the Beautiful Stranger". title song of 1970 album, sung by Pete Atkin.”
Clive James (1939–2019) said by 2019 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There was a Socratic style of life (which the Cynics were to imitate), and the Socratic dialogue was an exercise which brought Socrates’ interlocutor to put himself in question, to take care of himself, and to make his soul as beautiful and wise as possible.”
Pierre Hadot (1922–2010) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: trans. Michael Chase (1995), p. 269
“On stage and off, we care what happens to a beautiful woman, whether she can act well or not.”
Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hate leaves ugly scars, love leaves beautiful ones.”
Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source