quotations about beauty
Beauty is the form under which the intellect prefers to study the world. All privilege is that of beauty; for there are many beauties; as, of general nature, of the human face and form, of manners, of brain, or method, moral beauty, or beauty of the soul.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
The Conduct of Life
Let us reflect, what most powerfully attracts the eyes of beholders, and seizes the spectator with rapturous delight; for if we can find what this is, we may perhaps use it as a ladder, enabling us to ascend into the region of beauty, and survey its immeasurable extent.
PLOTINUS
"Concerning the Beautiful"
Women of no beauty may yet be flattered to believe they possess some; others of a moderate share that they have a great deal; but those of elegance and charm generally know the perfection of their external graces so well, that they seem to covet that flattery most which heightens the opinion of their wit and judgment.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
In spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits.
JOHN KEATS
Endymion
Arguments out of a pretty mouth are unanswerable.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Freeholder, Jan. 2, 1716
Beauty for the most part, consists in objects of sight; but it is also received through the ears, by the skilful composition of words, and the consonant proportion of sounds; for in every species of harmony, beauty is to be found.
PLOTINUS
"Concerning the Beautiful"
Beauty is a terrible and awful thing! It is terrible because it has not been fathomed, for God sets us nothing but riddles. Here the boundaries meet and all contradictions exist side by side.
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
The Brothers Karamazov
True love survives all shocks: an affection originally produced by admiration for unusual beauty may not only survive the loss of that beauty, but may become more intense if the beauty has changed into ugliness through causes that bind the lovers together in tender associations.
ARTHUR LYNCH
Moods of Life
What is love at first sight but a proof of the powerful but silent language of physiognomy?
MARY CLEMMER AMES
attributed, Edge-tools of Speech
Beauty acts as a cause to produce love, because the being, the attributes and the works of God possess beauty, and every one loves that which is beautiful.
MUHAMMAD AL-GHAZALI
The Alchemy of Happiness
The beauty that men seek is half a dream--
Where'er we wander, yet it lies afar;
It touches with its wand a setting star,
It stirs the ripple of an ebbing stream.
And though we run beyond the dawning gleam,
Or kneel to worship at an altar bright,
We may not know the soul of its delight,
Or more than marvel at its palest beam.
KENNETH RAND
"The True Magic"
Ask me where beauty is, I'll say
'Tis in sweet maiden's witchery;
Amid the beams of her flashing eye
When pleasure's cup is sparkling high,
And new-born love's first artless glances
Illume her brow,
And joy within her young heart dances
For the first vow;
When she knows not of blighting care,
And all is bright, and fresh, and fair;
And fancy's banner is unfurled,
Tinting with rose her future world;
Nor cloud, nor mist dims in her eye
The sunshine of life's morning sky,
That, with such gay and golden beams,
Colours her happy youth with dreams.
C. B. LANGSTON
"Where Is Beauty?"
Beauty can afford to laugh at distinctions: it is itself the greatest distinction.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
A woman who has never been pretty has never been young.
MADAME SWETCHINE
"Airelles,", The Writings of Madame Swetchine
The study of beauty is a duel in which the artist cries out in terror before being defeated.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
"Le Confiteor de l'artiste," Le Spleen de Paris
Judge nothing by the appearance. The more beautiful the serpent, the more fatal its sting.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,"--that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
JOHN KEATS
"Ode on a Grecian Urn"
The creator and arbiter of beauty is the heart; to the male rattlesnake the female rattlesnake is the loveliest thing in nature.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"Epigrams of a Cynic"
Life deprived of beauty is not worthy of being called human.
LUIS BARRAGÁN
attributed, Artes de Mexico, 1994
The only beautiful thing in the world whose beauty lasts for ever is a pure, fair soul.
BRAM STOKER
"The Rose Prince"