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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“My wife, she is a beautiful woman, but in labour she turned into fucking Jack Nicholson from The Shining. "You. You fucking did this to me!" "But I thought it was a shared experience" "No. You fucking did this!”
Lee Evans (comedian) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Something you want badly enough can always be gained. No matter how fierce the enemy, how remote the beautiful lady, or how carefully guarded the treasure, there is always a means to the goal for the earnest seeker. The unseen help of the guardian gods of heaven and earth assure fulfillment.”
Dōgen (1200–1253) said by 1253 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And sometimes when I am weary, When the path is thorny and Wild, I'll look back to the Eyes in the twilight, Back to the eyes that smiled.And pray that a wreath like a rainbow May slip from the beautiful past, And Crown me again with the sweet, strong love And keep me, and hold me fast.”
Voltairine de Cleyre (1866–1912) said by 1912 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“..the thing was to choose one [a ready-made object] that you were not attracted by.. ..and that was difficult because anything becomes beautiful if you look at it long enough.. .[My intention was to] completely eliminate the existence of taste, bad or good or indifferent.”
Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from The New York school – the painters & sculptors of the fifties, Irving Sandler, Harper & Row, Publishers, 1978, p. 164
“Now as before it is the vulgar and the vital and the possibility of its transformation into the beautiful which continues to challenge and fascinate me... Or perhaps the subject of my art is like the definition of humor — emotional pain remembered in tranquillity.”
Grace Hartigan (1922–2008) first seen 1950 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement to World Artists : 1950-1980 as quoted n "Grace Hartigan, 86, Abstract Painter, Dies" in The New York Times (18 November 2008)
“There is no man on earth who can give a final judgment on what the most beautiful shape may be. Only God knows.”
Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) said by 1528 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Mathematics, Education and Philosophy: An International Perspective (1994) by Paul Ernest
“BEAUTIFUL Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay ! With your numerous arches and pillars in so grand array And your central girders, which seem to the eye To be almost towering to the sky.”
William McGonagall (1825–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay! Alas! I am very sorry to say That ninety lives have been taken away On the last Sabbath day of 1879, Which will be remember'd for a very long time.”
William McGonagall (1825–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The beautiful, which is perhaps inseparable from art, is not after all tied to the subject, but to the pictorial representation. In this way and in no other does art overcome the ugly without avoiding it.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1898 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Diary entry (December 1905), # 733, in The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898-1918; University of California Press, 1968
“To emphasize only the beautiful seems to me to be like a mathematical system that only concerns itself with positive numbers.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1898 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Diary entry (March 1906), # 759, in The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898-1918; University of California Press, 1968
“Kandinsky wants to organize a new society of artists. I came to feel a deep trust in him [ Kandinsky ]. He is somebody, and has an exceptionally beautiful and lucid mind.”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1911 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from Diaries III, 1911; as quoted by Enric Jardi, Paul Klee, Rizzoli Intl Pubns, 1991 - , p 12
“We have been living in times in which human cruelty is all around us. Yet the world is very beautiful.”
Marge Piercy (born 1936) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My skin is more beautiful than yours. I would be quite more popular in jail if I so chose.”
Gene Simmons (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Everywhere there is craft and technique, everywhere there is artistry and form. Art itself, technique, is ponderous and clumsy, and because of it awkwardness it obstructs that inner element.. .All craft, technique, and artistry, like anything beautiful, results in futility and vulgarity. [critical quote on Constructivism artists]”
Kazimir Malevich (1879–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In: 'On poetry'; as quoted in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 65
“Girls are beautiful, let's face it, and life is quite, quite worthless without them.”
Chetan Bhagat (born 1974) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“‘Who knocks?’ ‘I, who was beautiful, Beyond all dreams to restore, I from the roots of the dark thorn am hither, And knock on the door.’”
Walter de la Mare (1873–1956) said by 1956 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One can never do anything so beautiful as nature.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Among Troyon's paintings there are two huge ones; Return to the Farm is marvelous with its beautiful stormy sky. There is much windy motion in the clouds, and the cows and dogs are very good. In Going to the Market you see the mist at sunrise. It's superb and, most of all, very luminous. The wide space in View from Surennes is amazing. You feel you are really in the countryside.”
Claude Monet (1840–1926) first seen 1859 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1859 letter to , June 3, 1859; as cited in Rodolphe Rapetti (1990) Monet, p. 11
“I am weary, having worked without a break all day; how beautiful it is here, to be sure, but how difficult to paint! I can see what I want to do quite clearly but I'm not there yet. It's so clear and pure in its pink and blues that the slightest misjudged stroke looks like a smudge of dirt.. .I have fourteen canvases underway.”
Claude Monet (1840–1926) first seen 1886 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Monet's quote in a letter from Cote d'Azure to his second wife Alice Hoschedé, (ca. 1886): K.E. Sullivan. Monet: Discovering Art, Brockhampton press, London (2004), p. 55
“We finally saw the sea, the horizonless sea – how odd for a mountaindweller. We saw the beautiful boats that sail on it. It is too inviting, one feels carried away, one would leave to see the whole world.”
Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) first seen 1841 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from Courbet's letter to his parents (1841); as quoted in Howard F. Isham Image of the Sea: Oceanic Consciousness in the Romantic Century, Peter Lang (2004), Chapter 'Waterworlds', p. 307
“How sweet and beautifull is every place & I visit my old Haunts with renewed delight... nothing can exceed the beautiful green of the meadows which are beginning to fill with butter Cups — & various flowers — the birds are singing from morning till night but most of all the Sky larks — How delightfull is the Country.”
John Constable (1776–1837) first seen 1821 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to his wife, Maria Bicknell (20 April 1821); as quoted in Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable (Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1993), p. 28
“There is nothing ugly; I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object be what it may, — light, shade, and perspective will always make it beautiful.”
John Constable (1776–1837) said by 1837 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in C.R. Leslie, Memoirs of the Life of John Constable, Composed Chiefly of His Letters (1843), (Phaidon, London, 1951), p. 280
“Oh how beautiful to fall to give you flight, To die to give you life, to rest under your sky; And in your enchanted land forever sleep.”
José Rizal (1861–1896) said by 1896 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They [his own fantasies he made in strange pencil drawings then] hover before me now in drifting color, more beautiful than I can possibly paint them.. ..I yearn for the day when I will have found my color harmonies, my harmonies.”
Emil Nolde (1867–1956) first seen 1902 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote of Nolde's letter, 1902, to ; as cited in Expressionism, a German intuition, 1905-1920, Neugroschel, Joachim; Vogt, Paul; Keller, Horst; Urban, Martin; Dube, Wolf Dieter; (transl. Joachim Neugroschel); publisher: …
“The materials, the colors, were like friendship and love, both wanting to fulfill themselves in the most beautiful form.”
Emil Nolde (1867–1956) said by 1956 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All we know is that life is sweet and that it does not last long. Why should people be envious of each other? Why do we hate each other? Why can't we live at peace in a world that is so beautiful and so wide?”
William March (1893–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Japan was to be married, not to Hitler, but to the German forests; not to Mussolini, but to the Roman pantheon. It was a pact joining German, Roman, and Japanese mythology: a friendship among the beautiful, masculine, pagan gods of East and West.”
Yukio Mishima (1925–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Like the Cubists before them, the abstractionists felt a beautiful thing in perceiving how the medium can, of its own accord, carry one into the unknown, that is to the discovery of new structures. What an inspiration the medium is..”
Mark Rothko (1903–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Some say I have a beautiful voice, some say I have not. It is a matter of opinion. All I can say, those who don't like it shouldn't come to hear me.”
Maria Callas (1923–1977) first seen 1957 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Television interview with Norman Ross, Chicago (17 November 1957)
“Possibly steel is so beautiful because of all the movement associated with it, its strength and functions.. .Yet it is also brutal: the rapist, the murderer and death-dealing giants are also its offspring. [quote, early 1950's]”
David Smith (1906–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is not bright colors but good drawing that makes figures beautiful.”
Titian (1490–1576) said by 1576 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Quotable Artist (2002) by Peggy Hadden, p. 32.
“I always felt like Baba hated me a little. And why not? After all, I had killed his beloved wife, his beautiful princess, hadn't I? The least I could have done was to have the decency to have turned out a little more like him.”
Khaled Hosseini (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I saw some amazing, beautiful, invigorating parts of America, but I saw some dark parts of America, an ugly side of America, a side of America that rarely sees the light of day. I refer, of course, to the anus and testicles of my co-star, Ken Davitian.”
Sacha Baron Cohen (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Alas! The memories that are swallowed up in the abyss of the years! I'm all alone now and I would never be able to escape from the self-seeking of human kind anyway. Now it's theft, conceit, infatuation, and now it's rapine or seizure of one's production. But Nature is very beautiful. They can't take that away from me. [in the last conversation Vollard had with Cezanne]”
Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) first seen 1905 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in a conversation in Cezanne's studio in Aix, End of 1905; as quoted in Cézanne, Ambroise Vollard, Dover publications Inc. New York, 1984, p. 112
“Maybe Delacroix stands for Romanticism. He stuffed himself with too much Shakespeare and Dante, thumbed through too much Faust. His palette is still the most beautiful in France, and I tell you no one under the sky had more charm and pathos combined than he, or more vibration of colour. We all paint in his language, as you all write in Hugo's.”
Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) said by 1906 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I like strong/vulnerable interesting women, and then sometimes I like painting beautiful men, like Kurt Cobain, or Mr Darcy.”
Stella Vine (born 1969) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Stella Vine's The Waltz at Museum of New Art", Detroit Museum of New Art, (2006-09-15.
“He's probably the world's most beautiful-looking man, yet he doesn't think that he's gorgeous. And to me, he's just smelly, farty Leo.”
Leonardo DiCaprio (born 1974) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“, Worpswede, Worpswede! [small rural village in North-Germany were a colony of German artists was working then, including Paula] My sunken Bell mood! Birches, birches, pine trees and old willows. Beautiful brown moors – exquisite brown! The canals with their black reflections, black as asphalt..”
Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) first seen 1897 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from her Journal, Worpswede 1897; as cited in Voicing our visions, – Writings by women artists; ed. Mara R. Witzling, Universe New York, 1991, p. 192
“As I was painting today, some thoughts came to me and I want to write them down for the people I love. I know that I shall not live very long. But I wonder, is that sad? Is a celebration more beautiful because it lasts longer? And my life is a celebration, a short, intense celebration.”
Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) first seen 1900 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In her Journal-entry, 26 July 1900; as quoted in Tromp M, Ravelli AC, Reitsma JB, Bonsel GJ, Mol BW: Increasing maternal age at first pregnancy planning: health outcomes and associated costs, in: 'J Epidemiol Community …
“Now it's almost as beautiful as Christmas [then Paula suddenly fell to the floor].. ..What a pity! [her last words].”
Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: as quoted in: Paula Modersohn-Becker, the challenges of pregnancy and the weight of tradition, by Giorgina B. Piccoli and Scott L. Karakas; published in: 'Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine', 6 June 2011, p.…
“We had a very lovely place [in Ascona with his life-companion Marianne Werefkin ] with a garden directly on the lake. It was on the edge of Ascona. Next to it began the Campagna [landscape], and this Campagna was enchantingly beautiful, like a dream.”
Alexej von Jawlensky (1864–1941) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: quote from Jawlensky's memoirs, 1936/41: Lebenserinnerungen (Memories) p. 119; as cited in Exile, the Avant-Garde, and Dada: Women Artists Active in Switzerland during the First World War , by Isabel Wünsche, p. 66
“Design in nature is but a concatenation of accidents, culled by natural selection until the result is so beautiful or effective as to seem a miracle of purpose.”
Michael Pollan (born 1955) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I was walking down the road the other day, and I couldn't help but notice how beautiful the world is. And I thought to myself "Why would anyone in their right mind bother to take drugs?". Then I remembered I was on drugs, and that was the reason.”
Simon Munnery (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is always something about our feeling for beautiful things which can neither be described nor communicated, which is unshared and unshareable.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) said by 1930 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People here cannot conceive of worlds where dæmons are a silent voice in the mind and no more. Can you imagine my astonishment, in turn, at learning that part of my own nature was female, and bird-formed, and beautiful?”
Philip Pullman (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...What I can't understand is why come here and try and change our country into the place that you've come from? And all I ask of people is come here, respect our country, respect our laws, our culture, our way of life. Be Australian, join us, enjoy this beautiful country and everything that it has to offer.”
Pauline Hanson (born 1954) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview on Enough Rope (September 20, 2004)
“Surely I am a better mistress to serve?" "You are more beautiful, Your Majesty." The queen smiled again before I finished. "But she is more kind." So much for discretion. The smile disappeared. You could have heard a pin drop onto the stone floor as her alabaster cheeks flushed red. No one could ever accuse the queen of Attolia of being kind.”
Megan Whalen Turner (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Life's not a bitch, life is a beautiful woman, You only call her a bitch 'cause she won't let you get that pussy, Maybe she didn't feel y'all shared any similar interests, Or maybe you're just an asshole who couldn't sweet-talk the princess,”
Aesop Rock (born 1976) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All things bright and beautiful, All creatures great and small, All things wise and wonderful: The Lord God made them all.”
Cecil Frances Alexander (1818–1895) said by 1895 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I tried to explain to her the significance of the great poet, but without much success, The Waste Land not figuring very largely in Mam's scheme of things. "The thing is," I said finally, "he won the Nobel Prize." "Well," she said, with that unerring grasp of inessentials which is the prerogative of mothers, "I’m not surprised. It was a beautiful overcoat.”
Alan Bennett (born 1934) first seen 1994 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Introduction, p. x (1994).