Selected beauty quotes

1. I experience a period of frightening clarity in those moments when nature is so beautiful. I am no longer sure of myself, and the paintings appear as in a dream.

2. I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.

3. Keep your love of nature, for that is the true way to understand art more and more.

4. Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough.

5. Beauty, thou wild fantastic ape Who dost in every country change thy shape!

6. We turn our backs on nature; we are ashamed of beauty. Our wretched tragedies have a smell of the office clinging to them, and the blood that trickles from them is the color of printer's ink.

7. For those of us who have been thrown into hell, mysterious melodies and the torturing images of a vanished beauty will always bring us, in the midst of crime and folly, the echo of that harmonious insurrection which bears witness, throughout the centuries, to the greatness of humanity.

8. Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time.

9. The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.

10. If one had but a single glance to give the world, one should gaze on Istanbul.

11. Gather the flowers, but spare the buds.

12. I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They're beautiful. Everybody's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic.

13. No matter how long we exist, we have our memories. Points in time which time itself cannot erase. Suffering may distort my backward glances, but even to suffering, some memories will yield nothing of their beauty or their splendor. Rather they remain as hard as gems.

14. As soon as beauty is sought not from religion and love, but for pleasure, it degrades the seeker.

15. Those who assert that the mathematical sciences say nothing of the beautiful or the good are in error. For these sciences say and prove a great deal about them; if they do not expressly mention them, but prove attributes which are their results or definitions, it is not true that they tell us nothing about them. The chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry and definiteness, which the mathematical sciences demonstrate in a special degree.

16. Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference.

17. Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.

18. My look is attainable. Women can look like Audrey Hepburn by flipping out their hair, buying the large sunglasses, and the little sleeveless dresses.

19. The body expresses our very being. The striving for beauty is inborn among the Aryan.

20. Of all the works of man I like best Those which have been used. The copper pots with their dents and flattened edges The knives and forks whose wooden handles Have been worn away by many hands: such forms Seemed to me the noblest.

21. Hollywood always wanted me to be pretty, but I fought for realism.

22. Men become much more attractive when they start looking older. But it doesn't do much for women, though we do have an advantage: make-up.

23. The problem of distinguishing prime numbers from composite numbers and of resolving the latter into their prime factors is known to be one of the most important and useful in arithmetic. It has engaged the industry and wisdom of ancient and modern geometers to such an extent that it would be superfluous to discuss the problem at length... Further, the dignity of the science itself seems to require that every possible means be explored for the solution of a problem so elegant and so celebrated.

24. Life stands before me like an eternal spring with new and brilliant clothes.

25. It matters more what's in a woman's face than what's on it.

26. You have no idea what a long-legged gal can do without doing anything.

27. They say marriages are made in Heaven. But so is thunder and lightning.

28. The paintings of Francis Bacon to my eye are very beautiful. The paintings of Bosch or Goya are to my eye very beautiful. I've also stood in front of those same paintings with people who've said, 'let's get on to the Botticellis as soon as possible.' I have lingered, of course.

29. To tell the truth, the chariot was an astonishing sight to behold, because I had polished the steel of my flying house so carefully that it reflected the sunlight on all sides. It was so bright and dazzling that I thought, myself, that I had been carried away in a chariot of fire.

30. Beauty like hers is genius.

31. We're pretty! We are though, we're a good-looking band.

32. The death then of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world, and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic are those of a bereaved lover.

33. I would define, in brief, the Poetry of words as the Rhythmical Creation of Beauty. Its sole arbiter is taste. With the intellect or with the conscience, it has only collateral relations. Unless incidentally, it has no concern whatever either with duty or with truth.

34. Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.

35. Truth is never ugly when one can find in it what one needs.

36. To rejoice in life, to find the world beautiful and delightful to live in, was a mark of the Greek spirit which distinguished it from all that had gone before. It is a vital distinction.

37. Perfect beauty implies perfect simplicity, a quality that at first sight does not arouse the emotions which we feel before gigantic works, objects whose very disproportion constitutes an element of beauty.

38. Curiously enough, the Sublime is generally achieved through want of proportion.

39. Aesthetic value is often the by-product of the artist striving to do something else.

40. There is no longer beauty except in the struggle. No more masterpieces without an aggressive character. Poetry must be a violent assault against the unknown forces in order to overcome them and prostrate them before men.

41. One should always learn to enjoy the neighbor's garden, however small; the roses straggling over the fence, the scent of lilacs drifting across the road.

42. Would that all excellent books were foundlings, without father or mother, that so it might be, we could glorify them, without including their ostensible authors. Nor would any true man take exception to this;-least of all, he who writes,-'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.'

43. 'For every thing there is an embellishment (or a decoration), and the embellishment of the Qur'an is a good voice.'

44. Il n'y a que des enfants aimants et aimes qui puissent consoler une femme de la perte de sa beaute.

45. Rien n'est-il si discret qu'un jeune visage, parce que rien n'est plus immobile. La figure d'une jeune femme a le calme, le poli, la fraicheur de la surface d'un lac. La physionomie des femmes ne commence qu'a trente ans.

46. Persian Sufi poetry is animated by a vision of divine beauty-that beauty which is in the words of Keats, 'a joy forever.' This beauty is also, in the theological vocabulary of the Koran, the 'Light of the Heavens and the Earth.' The Truth underlying Appearance, the Absolute Being, the One who is 'like unto none'. All round the world my heart has gone but like unto Him found no one' There is none like Him, none like Him, none!

47. Most English-speaking people ... will admit that cellar door is 'beautiful,' especially if dissociated from its sense (and from its spelling). More beautiful that, say, sky, and far more beautiful than beautiful... Well then, in Welsh, for me cellar doors are extraordinarily frequent, and moving to the higher dimension, the words in which there is pleasure in the contemplation of the association of form and sense are abundant.

48. 'I mainly use Lineur Intense by L'Oreal but I also use the MAC 'Smolder' pencil as well as the liquid liner. The L'Oreal liquid is the best I've tried as far as color and smudging but if you've ever seen me after a show you know that I'm not immune to running eyeliner.'

49. Jade: 'Aww, man!!! S***! I just dropped my favorite eyeliner!'

50. I like listening to it just as I like looking at a fuchsia drenched with rain.

51. On thy fair bosom, silver lake, The wild swan spreads his snowy sail, And round his breast the ripples break As down he bears before the gale.

52. The birch, most shy and lady-like of trees, Her poverty, as best she may, retrieves, And hints at her foregone gentilities With some saved relics of her wealth of leaves.

53. God makes sech nights, all white an' still, Fur'z you can look or listen, Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill, All silence an' all glisten.

54. The negligence of Nature wide and wild, Where, undisguised by mimic art, she spreads Unbounded beauty to the roving eye.

55. For loveliness Needs not the foreign aid of ornament, But is when unadorned adorned the most.

56. The glory of the day was in her face, The beauty of the night was in her eyes.

57. The glory of the day was in her face, The beauty of the night was in her eyes. And over all her loveliness, the grace Of Morning blushing in the early skies.

58. And God smiled again, And the rainbow appeared, And curled itself around his shoulder.

59. Superstition saw Something it had never seen before: Brown eyes that loved without a trace of fear, Beauty so sudden for that time of year.

60. 'B-E-A-utiful.' (Bruce Almighty)

61. I'm sick of dour faces Staring at me from the T.V. Tower. I want roses in my garden bower; dig?

62. We look for romance in the well-cultivated garden-plots, and when it springs out of virgin soil we are surprised, though any fool might know it was the natural place for it.

63. For I could tell you a story which is true; I know a lady with a terrible tongue, Blear eyes fallen from blue, All her perfections tarnished-and yet it is not long Since she was lovelier than any of you.

64. Ever charming, ever new, When will the landscape tire the view?

65. The beaute faye upon her face Non erthly thing it may desface.

66. Maud Muller, on a summer's day, Raked the meadows sweet with hay. Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth Of simple beauty and rustic health.

67. There is no rose Spryngyng in gardeyns, but ther be sum thorn.

68. Without the meed of some melodious tear.

69. Sheila has just shuffled into the kitchen, she's walking with a stick and wearing a hat to cover a rather unsightly scar but she's never looked more beautiful than she does now. (On his wife, after her surgery for a brain tumour)

70. For when we are interested in the beauty of a thing, the oftener we can see it the better; but when we are interested only by the story of a thing, we get tired of hearing the same tale told over and over again, and stopping always at the same point - we want a new story presently, a newer and better one - and the picture of the day, and novel of the day, become as ephemeral as the coiffure or the bonnet of the day. Now this spirit is wholly adverse to the existence of any lovely art. If you mean to throw it aside to-morrow, you can never have it to-day.

71. Ruskin's special gift was the feeling for beauty, in nature as in art. It was in Beauty that his nature led him to seek reality, and his entirely religious life received from it an entirely aesthetic use. But this Beauty to which he thus happened to dedicate his life was not conceived by him as an object of enjoyment made to charm, but as a reality infinitely more important than life, for which he would have given his own life. From this, as you will see, the whole aesthetic system of Ruskin follows. First, you will understand that the years when he became acquainted with a new school of architecture or of painting were the principal landmarks in the development of his ethics. He would speak of the years when Gothic art presented itself to him with the same gravity, the same emotional nostalgia, the same serenity with which a Christian speaks of the day the truth was revealed to him.

72. She strode like a grenadier, was strong and upright like an obelisk, had a beautiful face, a candid brow, pure eyes, and not a thought of her own in her head.

73. 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.

74. Her soul's light shines through, But her soul cannot be seen. It is something elusive, whimsical, tender, wanton, infantile, wise And noble.

75. Loving her, Monsignore, I love all her attributes; But I believe That even if I did not love her I would love the blueness of her eyes, And her blue garment, made in the manner of the Japanese.

76. But, of your courtesy, Monsignore, Do me this favour: When you this morning make your way To the Ivory Throne that bursts into bloom with roses because of her who sits upon it, When you come to pay your devoir to Our Lady, I beg you, say to her: 'Madame, a poor poet, one of your singing servants yet on earth, Has asked me to say that at this moment he is especially grateful to you For wearing a blue gown.'

77. 'He's the most beautiful man who ever walked the earth ...' - Naomi Watts (People magazine, November 24, 2004)

78. 'Jude Law is one of the most handsome men on the planet. He is a character actor struggling to get out of a beautiful body.' - Anthony Minghella [6]

79. 'The movie Clueless was really big in the '90s, because it was superficial AND deep, like liposuction, which was also really big in the '90s.'

80. How I'm moved. How you move me With your beauty's potency.

81. God, but you're beautiful, aren't you? Feel your warm hand walking around. I won't pull away. My passion always wins. So keep on a-moving in. So keep on a-tuning in. Synchronise rhythm now.

82. You look like an angel, Sleeping it off at a station. Were you only passing through?

83. She sent him scented letters, And he received them with a strange delight. Just like his wife But how she was before the tears, And how she was before the years flew by, And how she was when she was beautiful.

84. Follow the Nile Deep to much deeper. The Pyramids sound lonely tonight. The sands run red In lands of the Pharoahs. Their symmetry gets right inside me.

85. Do I look for those millionaires Like a Machiavellian girl would When I could wear the sunset?

86. Who said anything about it hurting? It's gonna be beautiful It's gonna be wonderful It's gonna be paradise.

87. Joanni, Joanni wears a golden cross And she looks so beautiful in her armour Joanni, Joanni blows a kiss to God And she never wears a ring on her finger...

88. It was just so beautiful.

89. Her music remains reassuringly the same ecstatic alchemy of the humdrum and otherworldly. Recalling the hello-clouds wonder of The Big Sky from 1985's Hounds of Love or the frank paean to menstruation that is Strange Phenomena from her debut, The Kick Inside, Aerial finds Bush marvelling in the magic of the everyday: the wind animating a skirt hanging on a clothes line, the trace of footprints leading into the sea, the indecipherable codes of birdsong.

90. When I got my salt scrub today, the woman doing it said 'Yes, in fact about 30% of our clientele are men. But mostly, they are Divorced Rich Beverly Hills Ladies.' And I thought (not out loud) who were these ladies? These 'ladies' were not born like that were they? Not destined to face lifts and peels, loneliness, tight lips and hard hair. No, in fact, hey were born free and beautiful and confident. And hopeful and anxious to find love. They only became Divorced Rich Beverly Hills Ladies because their rich husbands dropped them for someone more fuckable: maybe someone with long straight natural hair and thin legs who wears shorts and t- shirts with ease. Maybe a young photographer or writer. Someone interesting. No, the Divorced Rich Beverly Hills Ladies were too busy having and raising children, and too busy buying him gold toe socks at Barneys to become interesting.

91. The integral vision, I believe, is more than happy to welcome empirical science as a part - a very important part - of the endeavor to befriend the Kosmos, to be attuned to its many moods and flavors and facets and forms. But a more integral psychology goes beyond that . . . With science we touch the True, the 'It' of Spirit. With morals we touch the Good, the 'We' of Spirit. What, then, would an integral approach have to say about the Beautiful, the 'I' of Spirit itself? What is the Beauty that is in the eye of the Beholder? When we are in the eye of Spirit, the I of Spirit, what do we finally see?

92. He knew the depth of beauty, He was for ever surprised by its peace and its majesty; and He stood before the earth as the first man had stood before the first day. We whose senses have been dulled, we gaze in full daylight and yet we do not see. We would cup our ears, but we do not hear; and stretch forth our hands, but we do not touch. And though all the incense of Arabia is burned, we go our way and do not smell.

93. 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.

94. Seen through the glow of a building orgasm, a woman seems to blaze with angelic glory.

95. And where is now that palace gone, All the magical skill'd stone, All the dreaming towers wrought By Love as if no more than thought The unresisting marble was? How could such a wonder pass? Ah, it was but built in vain Against the stupid horns of Rome, That pusht down into the common loam The loveliness that shone in Spain. But we have raised it up again! A loftier palace, fairer far, Is ours, and one that fears no war. Safe in marvellous walls we are; Wondering sense like builded fires, High amazement of desires, Delight and certainty of love, Closing around, roofing above Our unapproacht and perfect hour Within the splendours of love's power.

96. Vanquished in life, his death By beauty made amends: The passing of his breath Won his defeated ends.

97. And thou wert lovely to the last, Extinguish'd, not decay'd; As stars that shoot along the sky Shine brightest as they fall from high.

98. The light of love, the purity of grace, The mind, the music breathing from her face, 19 The heart whose softness harmonized the whole,- And oh, that eye was in itself a soul!

99. Who hath not proved how feebly words essay To fix one spark of beauty's heavenly ray? Who doth not feel, until his failing sight Faints into dimness with its own delight, His changing cheek, his sinking heart, confess The might, the majesty of loveliness?

100. He who hath bent him o'er the dead Ere the first day of death is fled,- The first dark day of nothingness, The last of danger and distress, Before decay's effacing fingers Have swept the lines where beauty lingers.