Beauty

"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"

"Beauty soon grows familiar to the lover, Fades in his eye, and palls upon the sense."

"What is lovely never dies, But passes into other loveliness, Star-dust, or sea-foam, flower or wingëd air."

"Things are beautiful if you love them."

"Beauty, real beauty, is something very grave. If there is a God, He must be partly that."

"Beauty is one of the rare things that do not lead to doubt of God."

"Beauty adds to goodness a relation to the cognitive faculty: so that "good" means that which simply pleases the appetite; while the "beautiful" is something pleasant to apprehend."

"I must not say that she was true, Yet let me say that she was fair; And they, that lovely face who view, They should not ask if truth be there."

"A common expression among African Americans relates the good to the beautiful, "beauty is as beauty does" or "she's beautiful because she's good." The first statement places emphasis on what a person does, that is, how a person "walks" among others in the society. The second statement identifies the beautiful by action. If a person's actions are not good, it does not matter how the person looks physically. Doing good is equivalent to being beautiful."

"Slow was I, Lord, too slow in loving you. ... You were waiting within me while I went outside me, looking for you there, misshaping myself as I flung myself upon the shapely things you made."

"Inasmuch as love grows in you, in so much beauty grows; for love is itself the beauty of the soul."

"There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion."

"The beautiful are never desolate; But some one always loves them—God or man. If man abandons, God himself takes them."

"Are not all young men ready to trust the promise of a pretty face and to infer beauty of soul from beauty of feature? An indefinable impulse leads them to believe that moral perfection must co-exist with physical perfection."

"Beauty itself is but the sensible image of the infinite."

"Beauty is something that disappears when you try to define it."

"Unfortunately, truth is neither a listable nor a decidable property; nor is the truth of a statement of arithmetic. The American logician John Myhill has used the term 'prospective' to characterize those attributes of the world that are neither listable nor decidable. They are properties that cannot be recognized by the application of some formula, made to conform to a rule, or generated by some computer program. They are characterized by incessant novelty that cannot be encompassed by any finite set of rules. 'Beauty', 'ugliness', 'truth', 'harmony', simplicity', and 'poetry' are names we give to some of the attributes of this sort. There is no way of listing all examples of beauty or ugliness, nor any procedure for saying whether or not something possesses either of those attributes, without redefining them in some more restrictive fashion that kills their prospective character."

"Beautiful is a word for young people. Beauty is a phase you grow through, like acne."

"Ye Gods! but she is wondrous fair! For me her constant flame appears; The garland she hath culled, I wear On brows bald since my thirty years. Ye veils that deck my loved one rare, Fall, for the crowning triumph's nigh. Ye Gods! but she is wondrous fair! And I, so plain a man am I!"

"Beauty. The power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband."

"Glance at the sun. See the moon and the stars. Gaze at the beauty of the earth's greenings. Now, Think."

"There is no cosmetic for beauty like happiness."

"Beauty will be convulsive or not at all."

"Beauty, the eternal Spouse of the Wisdom of God and Angel of his Presence thru' all creation, fashioning her love-realm in the mind of man, attempteth every mortal child with influences of her divine supremacy."

"Verily by Beauty it is that we come at , yet not by Reason at Beauty."

"I had hardly ever seen a handsome youth; never in my life spoken to one. I had a theoretical reverence and homage for beauty, elegance, gallantry, fascination; but had I met those qualities incarnate in masculine shape, I should have known instinctively that they neither had nor could have sympathy with anything in me, and should have shunned them as one would fire, lightning, or anything else that is bright but antipathetic."

"The essence of all beauty, I call love, The attribute, the evidence, and end, The consummation to the inward sense Of beauty apprehended from without, I still call love."

"The beautiful seems right By force of beauty, and the feeble wrong Because of weakness."

"O world, as God has made it! All is beauty."

"L'air spirituel est dans les hommes ce que la régularité des traits est dans les femmes: c'est le genre de beauté où les plus vains puissent aspirer."

"Beauty, thou art twice blessed! thou blessest the gazer and the possessor; often at once the effect and the cause of goodness! A sweet disposition—a lovely soul—an affectionate nature—will speak in the eyes—the lips—the brows—and become the cause of beauty. On the other hand, they who have a gift that commands love, a key that opens all hearts, are ordinarily inclined to look with happy eyes upon the world—to be cheerful and serene—to hope and to confide. There is more wisdom than the vulgar dream of in our admiration of a fair face."

"Rank is a great beautifier."

"And behold there was a very stately palace before him, the name of which was Beautiful."

"Observe that part of a beautiful woman where she is perhaps the most beautiful, about the neck and breasts; the smoothness; the softness; the easy and insensible swell; the variety of the surface, which is never for the smallest space the same; the deceitful maze, through which the unsteady eye slides giddily, without knowing where to fix, or whither it is carried. Is not this a demonstration of that change of surface continual and yet hardly perceptible at any point which forms one of the great constituents of beauty?"

"Beauty's of a fading nature— Has a season and is gone!"

"Nothing gives life a finer touch of grace, than the presence in the family circle of a lovely girl of seventeen."

"A lovely girl is above all rank. Men, however high, must feel her higher, however low."

"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?"

"The light of love, the purity of grace, The mind, the Music breathing from her face, The heart whose softness harmonized the whole, And, oh! the eye was in itself a Soul!"

"She walks in beauty like the night Of cloudless chimes and starry skies; And all that's best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies."

"Thou who hast The fatal gift of beauty."

"Her glossy hair was cluster'd o'er a brow Bright with intelligence, and fair and smooth; Her eyebrow's shape was like the aerial bow, Her cheek all purple with the beam of youth, Mounting, at times, to a transparent glow, As if her veins ran lightning."

"A lovely being, scarcely formed or moulded, A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded."

"[B]eauty 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."

"Beauty is pain and there's beauty in everything."

"There is symbolic as well as actual beauty in the migration of birds, in the ebb and flow of the tides; in the folded bud ready for the spring. There is something infinitely healing in these repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter."

"I am not afraid of being thought a sentimentalist when I stand here tonight and tell you that I believe natural beauty has a necessary place in the spiritual development of any individual or any society. I believe that whenever we destroy beauty, or whenever we substitute something man-made and artificial for a natural feature of the earth, we have retarded some part of man's spiritual growth."

"Is it the right of this, our generation, in its selfish materialism, to destroy these things because we are blinded by the dollar sign? Beauty—and all the values the derive from beauty-are not measured and evaluated in terms of the dollar."

"The reason for the unreason with which you treat reason, so weakens my reason that with reason I complain of your beauty."

"No todas hermosuras enamoran, que algunas alegran la vista, y no rinden la voluntad."

"Beauty has this power, that in an instant, a moment, it brings with it the desire of whoever sees and knows it, and when it reveals or promises some way of reaching and enjoying it, with powerful fervor it sets fire to the soul of whoever contemplates it, just like the means whereby dry prepared gunpowder is easily lit by any spark that touches it."

"It is a prerogative of beauty to always be respected."

"Exceeding fair she was not; and yet fair In that she never studied to be fairer Than Nature made her; beauty cost her nothing, Her virtues were so rare."

"I pour into the world the eternal streams Wan prophets tent beside, and dream their dreams."

"There is a road from the eye to the heart that does not go through the intellect. Men do not quarrel about the meaning of sunsets; they never dispute that the hawthorn says the best and wittiest thing about the spring."

"Everything changes, but beauty remains."

"She is not fair to outward view As many maidens be; Her loveliness I never knew Until she smiled on me: Oh! then I saw her eye was bright, A well of love, a spring of light."

"Her gentle limbs did she undress, And lay down in her loveliness."

"There is in true beauty, as in courage, somewhat which narrow souls cannot dare to admire."

"Beauty is the lover's gift."

"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."

"I think that the most important thing a woman can have - next to talent, of course — is her hairdresser."

"The giant female bodybuilder proves unthinking people wrong who believe feminine beauty can never be harmonious with well developed musculature."

"“You are not traditionally beautiful; and you know it. We women do. But what most people mean by beauty is really a kind of aesthetic acceptability, not so much character as a lack of it, a set of features and lineaments that hide their history, that suggest history itself does not exist. But the template by which we recognize the features and forms in the human body that cause the heart to halt, threatening to spill us over into the silence of death—that is drawn on another part of the soul entirely...But all sing, chant, hymn the history of the body, if only because we all know how people regard bodies that deviate from the lauded and totally abnormal norm named beauty. Most of us would rather not recognize such desires in ourselves and thus avoid all contemplation of what the possession of such features means about the lives, the bodies, the histories of others, preferring instead to go on merely accepting the acceptable. But that is not who I am.”"

"Beautiful objects are wrought by study through effort, but ugly things are reaped automatically without toil."

"She had gained a reputation for beauty, and (which is often another thing) was beautiful."

"God help you if you are an ugly girl because too pretty is also your doom: Everyone harbours a secret hatred for the prettiest girl in the room."

"It seems that if one is working from the point of view of getting beauty in one's equations, and if one has really a sound insight, one is on a sure line of progress."

"The ladies of St. James's! They're painted to the eyes; Their white it stays for ever, Their red it never dies; But Phyllida, my Phyllida! Her colour comes and goes; It trembles to a lily,— It wavers to a rose."

"Beautiful was not the opposite of terrible. The two could easily co-exist."

"Beauty would save the world."

"She, though in full-blown flower of glorious beauty, Grows cold, even in the summer of her age."

"Old as I am, for ladies' love unfit, The power of beauty I remember yet, Which once inflam'd my soul, and still inspires my wit."

"When beauty fires the blood, how love exalts the mind!"

"I am one who tells the truth and exposes evil and seeks with Beauty for Beauty to set the world right."

"The innate love of harmony and beauty that set the ruder souls of his people a-dancing and a-singing raised but confusion and doubt in the soul of the black artist; for the beauty revealed to him was the soul-beauty of a race which his larger audience despised."

"Heaven forbid if beauty were to have substance. Genuine beauty is always meaningless, without virtue."

"The desire for truth so prominent in the quest of science, a reaching out of the spirit from its isolation to something beyond, a response to beauty in nature and art, an Inner Light of conviction and guidance—are these as much a part of our being as our sensitivity to sense impressions?"

"Although I am a typical loner in daily life, my consciousness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice has preserved me from feeling isolated."

"Many eyes go through the meadow, but few see the flowers in it."

"Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue."

"We fly to beauty as an asylum from the terrors of finite nature."

"Who gave thee, O Beauty, The keys of this breast,— Too credulous lover Of blest and unblest? Say, when in lapsed ages Thee knew I of old? Or what was the service For which I was sold?"

"The beautiful rests on the foundations of the necessary."

"Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why This charm is wasted on the marsh and sky, Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, Then beauty is its own excuse for being."

"Beauty without expression tires."

"Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but, until they speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful."

"Each ornament about her seemly lies, By curious chance, or careless art composed."

"Beauty is beautiful because it is doomed to perish!"

"I wanted very much to learn to draw, for a reason that I kept to myself: I wanted to convey an emotion I have about the beauty of the world. It's difficult to describe because it's an emotion. It's analogous to the feeling one has in religion that has to do with a god that controls everything in the whole universe: there's a generality aspect that you feel when you think about how things that appear so different and behave so differently are all run "behind the scenes" by the same organization, the same physical laws. It's an appreciation of the mathematical beauty of nature, of how she works inside; a realization that the phenomena we see result from the complexity of the inner workings between atoms; a feeling of how dramatic and wonderful it is. It's a feeling of awe — of scientific awe — which I felt could be communicated through a drawing to someone who had also had this emotion. It could remind him, for a moment, of this feeling about the glories of the universe."

"Any color, so long as it's red, Is the color that suits me best, Though I will allow there is much to be said For yellow and green and the rest."

"The most economical way of obtaining good results is to apply the great, fundamental principles of art; and depend on them for beauty, rather than upon the use of either applied ornament or more expensive materials."

"There's nothing that allays an angry mind So soon as a sweet beauty."

"Beauty ought to look a little surprised: it is the emotion that best suits her face. [...] The beauty who does not look surprised, who accepts her position as her due—she reminds us to much of a prima donna."

"The pursuit of beauty is much more dangerous nonsense than the pursuit of truth or goodness, because it affords a greater temptation to the ego."

"Облетев Землю в корабле-спутнике, я увидел, как прекрасна наша планета. Люди, будем хранить и приумножать эту красоту, а не разрушать её!"

"There is certainly no absolute standard of beauty. That is precisely what makes its pursuit so interesting."

"Il n'y a de vraiment beau que ce qui ne peut servir à rien; tout ce qui est utile est laid."

"In beauty, faults conspicuous grow; The smallest speck is seen on snow."

"Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror."

"The great artists are the ones who dare to entitle to beauty things so natural that when they’re seen afterward, people say: Why did I never realize before that this too was beautiful?"

"What happens when everyone in a society is finally beautiful (and healthy)? When the final aesthetic surgery is developed that will make all visages and bodies "perfect"? Will everyone in that society be happy? In examining the discourses of the late nineteenth century on this question, we are confronted with the paradox of François Xavier Bichat, as paraphrased by Charles Darwin: "If everyone were cast in the same mould, there would be no such thing as beauty. If all our women were to become as beautiful as the Venus de’ Medici (de Milo), we should for a time be charmed; but we should soon wish for variety; and as soon as we had obtained variety, we should wish to see certain characters a little exaggerated beyond the then existing common standard.” The very search for the improvement of the body (and the concomitant “happiness” of the psyche) must lead to further discontent."

"Do not allow yourself to be thrashed by the provoking whip of a beautiful face. How can sense slaves enjoy the world? Its subtle flavours escape them while they grovel in primal mud. All nice discriminations are lost to the man of elemental lusts."

"Good manners without sincerity are like a beautiful dead lady."

"Beauty is not so much performance as promise."

"Schön war ich auch, und das war mein Verderben."

"Handsome is that handsome does."

"Monstruosidad del ánimo es más deforme que la del cuerpo, porque desdice de la belleza superior."

"Beauty by no complexion is defin'd, Is of all colours, and to none confin'd."

"'Tis impious pleasure to delight in harm. And beauty should be kind, as well as charm."

"The man of half-grown intelligence, when he observes an object which is bathed in the glow of a seeming beauty, thinks that that object is in its essence beautiful, no matter what it is that so prepossesses him with the pleasure of the eye. He will not go deeper into the subject. But the other, whose mind's eye is clear, and who can inspect such appearances, will neglect those elements which are the material only upon which the Form of Beauty works; to him they will be but the ladder by which he climbs to the prospect of that Intellectual Beauty, in accordance with their share in which all other beauties get their existence and their name."

"The elegance of rich, complex, and diverse phenomena emerging from a simple set of universal laws is at least part of what physicists mean when they invoke the term "beautiful.""

"Spieglein, Spieglein an der Wand: Wer ist die schönste Frau in dem ganzen Land?"

"The dimple that thy chin contains has beauty in its round, That never has been fathomed yet by myriad thoughts profound."

"Beauty was lent to nature as the type Of heaven's unspeakable and holy joy, Where all perfection makes the sum of bliss."

"Whenever the mind of the artist suffers itself to be occupied, during its periods of creation, by any other predominant motive than the desire of beauty, the result is false in art."

"There are few efforts more conducive to humility than that of the translator trying to communicate an incommunicable beauty. Yet, unless we do try, something unique and never surpassed will cease to exist, except in the libraries of a few inquisitive book lovers."

"To the artist, to the musician, is given the task of creating and expressing beauty--of sensitizing the souls of men."

"There is certainly a religion which belongs to the physical form, and which should be regarded in degree as much as that which belongs to the soul. It is as much a duty for every man and woman to perfect fully their physical form as for them to continually search for immortality."

"There's beauty all around our paths, if but our watchful eyes Can trace it 'midst familiar things, and through their lowly guise."

"Many a temptation comes to us in fine, gay colours that are but skin deep."

"Care about the beings you care about in gorgeous and surprising ways. Color outside the lines. Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty. This is your last chance."

"If you need something to worship, then worship life — all life, every last crawling bit of it! We're all in this beauty together!"

"Beauty draws more than oxen."

"Beauty is the index of a larger fact than wisdom."

"A heaven of charms divine Nausicaa lay."

"O matre pulchra filia pulchrior."

"Nihil est ab omni Parte beatum."

"Sith Nature thus gave her the praise, To be the chiefest work she wrought, In faith, methink, some better ways On your behalf might well be sought, Than to compare, as ye have done, To match the candle with the sun."

"A queen, devoid of beauty is not queen; She needs the royalty of beauty's mien."

"Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty."

"Beauty, whether moral or natural, is felt, more properly than perceived. Or if we reason concerning it, and endeavor to fix its standard, we regard a new fact, to wit, the general tastes of mankind, or some such fact, which may be the object of reasoning and enquiry."

"Where beauty is worshiped for beauty's sake as a goddess, independent of and superior to morality and philosophy, the most horrible putrefaction is apt to set in. The lives of the aesthetes are the far from edifying commentary on the religion of beauty."

"¿En perseguirme, mundo, qué interesas? ¿En qué te ofendo, cuando sólo intento poner bellezas en mi entendimiento y no mi entendimiento en las bellezas?"

"When you get to the point where you cheat for the sake of beauty, you're an artist."

"Consider the origins of beauty and you soon realize that it is a triumph of accident. Be it human or art, the chances are its parents were toxic waste."

"Once a centenarian teacher who had the body of an adolescent told me he had studied martial arts. "Me, too," I answered. We were in Notre Dame, and he said, "Attack me." I put myself in a combat position, and he moved his left hand in such an incredibly beautiful way that while I looked at it, fascinated, he gave me a big slap. "Beauty is the most dangerous weapon," he warned. It took me a long time to understand. He used a secret Chinese practice, which consists of drawing a snake in the air with your hand to distract the enemy. And that is how beauty is: the most awful weapon."

"A skein of silk without a knot! A fair march made without a halt! A curious form without a fault! A printed book without a blot! All beauty!—and without a spot."

"Eyes raised toward heaven are always beautiful, whatever they be."

"The divine right of beauty is the only one an Englishman ought to acknowledge, and a pretty woman the only tyrant he is not authorized to resist."

"Rara est adeo concordia formæ Atque pudicitiæ."

"We must remember: what is beautiful is the resistance, and that people can—and must—resist from their own authentic place in the world…It is from this solid, self-knowing place that we can work towards peace and justice"

"Beauty...is merciless. You do not look at it, it looks at you and does not forgive."

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever; Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing."

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

"I'm tired of all this nonsense about beauty being only skin-deep. That's deep enough. What do you want—an adorable pancreas?"

"Why is the world so beautiful? is a question that we all ought to be embracing."

"Nieuwerkerke's replacement did not give Manet and the painters of the any... cause for cheer. Under the Third Republic... in November 1870 ... became Director of Fine Arts. ...Blanc had published a biography of Ingres, whom he idealized... and for several decades [Blanc] had been the most prolific and articulate exponent of the sort of celebrated at the . In his lofty conception of art, Eve was the original representative of beauty, but by plucking the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge she had plunged the world into a... sort of Platonic world of appearances in which the ideal was obscured by the humdrum and ugly material world. ...[T]he ability to see through the veil of appearances... was "obscure, latent, and sleeping" among the majority of men. However, great artists— ...especially Ingres and the painters of the —"carry within themselves this idea of the beautiful in a state of light." The true mission of art was... to show the "idea of the beautiful" that concealed itself behind the flickering shadows of the fallen world. ...[A]rt should not portray nature... but should idealize it... [H]e was vehemently opposed to Realism and paintings of la vie moderne, believing that artists who imitated nature and everyday life were slaves to appearance."

"In this job an illusion of beauty is sold which doesn’t really exist like that. It’s like a work of art, an act. I cry in front of the camera but am not really sad. I’ve just come from a job, am made-up and made to look beautiful with fantastic clothes and hair and nails all done."

"Half of all the women in the world are beautiful to men, nearly all are beautiful when they smile, and all are beautiful all the time to God."

"Beauty is almost wholly a matter of fashion; what is beautiful today would have been grotesque a couple of generations ago and will be grotesque a hundred years ahead. It will be worse than grotesque; it will be outmoded and therefore faintly ridiculous."

"The first step towards establishing pretensions of any kind, is to believe firmly in them yourself: faith is very catching, and half the beauty-reputations of which I hear have originated with the possessors."

"'Tis beauty calls, and glory shows the way."

"(Five-year-old Max, to his father): My teacher tells me real beauty's on the inside. (Father, in reply): That's just something ugly people say."

"Beautiful in form and feature, Lovely as the day, Can there be so fair a creature Formed of common clay?"

"Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax, Her cheeks like the dawn of day, And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds, That ope in the month of May."

"Nothing makes a woman more beautiful than the belief that she is beautiful."

"Oh, could you view the melodie Of ev'ry grace, And musick of her face, You'd drop a teare, Seeing more harmonie In her bright eye, Then now you heare."

"You are beautiful and faded Like an old opera tune Played upon a harpsichord."

"Where none admire, 'tis useless to excel; Where none are beaux, 'tis vain to be a belle."

"Beauty, like wit, to judges should be shown; Both most are valued where they best are known."

"Beauty and sadness always go together. Nature thought beauty too rich to go forth Upon the earth without a meet alloy."

"I remember that in a widely distributed French newspaper they asked the famous author of the Génie du Christianisme, if a nymph was not a bit more beautiful than a nun. In supposing them represented by the same talent or by equal talents (a condition without which the question would make no sense), there is no doubt that the nun would be more beautiful. The error best suited to extinguishing the true sentiment of beauty is that of confusing that which pleases with that which is beautiful, or in other words, that which pleases the senses with that which pleases the intelligence. What spectator of our sex will not find himself more moved by Titian's Venus than by Raphael's most beautiful Virgin? And yet what a difference of merit and worth! The beautiful, in all imaginable genres, is that which pleases enlightened virtue. Any other definition is false or insufficient. So why would the nun be less beautiful than the nymph? Perhaps because she is clothed? By what immoral blindness would one want to judge the representation other than the reality? Who does not know that veiled beauty is more seductive than visible beauty? What man has not noticed, and ten thousand times, that the woman who decides to satisfy the eye more than the imagination lacks taste even more than wisdom?"

"Beauty ... is the sole aspect of the spiritual which we can perceive through our senses."

"O, thou art fairer than the evening air Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars."

"A male hero, at best, lacks the qualities of maternal love and tenderness which are as essential to a normal child as the breath of life. Suppose your child's ideal becomes a superman who uses his extraordinary power to help the weak. The most important ingredient in the human happiness recipe still is missing-love. It's smart to be strong. It's big to be generous. But it's sissified according to exclusively masculine rules, to be tender, loving affectionate, and alluring. "Aw, that;'s girls stuff!" snorts our young comics reader. "Who wants to be a girl?" And that's the point. Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power. Not wanting to be girls, they don't want to be tender, submissive, peace-loving as good women are. Women's strong qualities have become despised because of their weakness. The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman."

"Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it."

"Days like this, I look out at all the snow and think. Man, this is beautiful… Then I wonder – is it really beautiful, or have we just been conditioned to think of everything “white” as beautiful? Is my mind, perhaps, not as liberated from the slave mentality as I thought? Then I think, what if snow were brown? Would I find it as nice to look at, or would it look "dirty"? Is this indicative that somewhere within my subconscious lurks some heretofore undiscovered self-hate?"

"Through light and joy is the world opened up, revealed for what it is: ineffable beauty, unending creation."

"The moment one give close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnified world in itself."

"Beauty is Nature's coin, must not be hoarded, But must be current, and the good thereof Consists in mutual and partaken bliss."

"Beauty is nature's brag, and must be shown In courts, at feasts, and high solemnities, Where most may wonder at the workmanship."

"Hung over her enamour'd, and beheld Beauty, which, whether waking or asleep, Shot forth peculiar graces."

"She fair, divinely fair, fit love for gods."

"... for beauty stands In the admiration only of weak minds Led captive. Cease to admire, and all her plumes Fall flat and shrink into a trivial toy, At every sudden slighting quite abash'd."

"And ladies of the Hesperides, that seemed Fairer than feign'd of old."

"Yet beauty, tho' injurious, hath strange power, After offence returning, to regain Love once possess'd."

"Amarás la belleza, que es la sombra de Dios sobre el Universo."

"Beauty is as tangible as blood, in a way. It is a separate, distinct force that inhabits the bodies of men and women. You must have noticed the vacuity that accompanies perfect beauty in so many women...the force so strong that it drives out all other forces and lives vampirishly at the expense of intelligence and goodness and conscience and all else."

"Beauty has wings, and too hastily flies, And love, unrewarded, soon sickens and dies."

"Beauty is everlasting, and dust is for a time."

"Beauty is perceived rhythm. Wave-rhythm through which everything outside us is mediated. Or: The beautiful is really everything one looks at with love. The more one loves the world, the more beautiful one will find it."

"Since most people find mathematics somewhat forbidding, if not frightening, they find it difficult to understand how it can be regarded as beautiful. ... It is not the visual beauty of a painting or the audio beauty of a musical performance. Nor is it the literary beauty of a great poem; it is entirely intellectual and therefore, while more difficult to perceive, more satisfying when perceived."

"Beauty is but a flower Which wrinkles will devour."

"Man believes that the world itself is filled with beauty—he forgets that it is he who has created it. He alone has bestowed beauty upon the world—alas! only a very human, an all too human, beauty."

"Altho' your frailer part must yield to Fate, By every breach in that fair lodging made, Its blest inhabitant is more displayed."

"And should you visit now the seats of bliss, You need not wear another form but this."

"An essential quality of beauty is aloofness."

"Science is not everything, but science is very beautiful."

"Hast thou left thy blue course in heaven, golden-haired son of the sky! The west has opened its gates; the bed of thy repose is there. The waves come, to behold thy beauty. They lift their trembling heads. They see thee lovely in thy sleep; they shrink away with fear. Rest, in thy shadowy cave, O sun! let thy return be in joy."

"And all the carnal beauty of my wife Is but skin-deep."

"Aut formosa fores minus, aut minus improba, vellem. Non facit ad mores tam bona forma malos."

"Auxilium non leve vultus habet."

"One would think that the mere shortness of life would be a reminder that to destroy beauty is to destroy one’s own self too."

"Let your beauty be not just the outward adorning of braiding the hair, and of wearing jewels of gold, or of putting on fine clothing; but in the hidden person of the heart, in the incorruptible adornment of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God very precious."

"Making something beautiful is difficult, but it is amazingly worthwhile. If you learn to make something in your life truly beautiful—even one thing—then you have established a relationship with beauty. From there you can begin to expand that relationship out into other elements of your life and the world. That is an invitation to the divine. That is the reconnection with the immortality of childhood, and the true beauty and majesty of the Being you can no longer see. You must be daring to try that."

"Beauty leads you back to what you have lost. Beauty reminds you of what remains forever immune to cynicism. Beauty beckons in a manner that straightens your aim. Beauty reminds you that there is lesser and greater value. Many things make life worth living: love, play, courage, gratitude, work, friendship, truth, grace, hope, virtue, and responsibility. But beauty is among the greatest of these."

"Raram facit misturam cum sapientia forma."

"O quanta species cerebrum non habet!"

"The flowers anew returning seasons bring! But beauty faded has no second spring."

"He had always suspected that beauty was the real feminine religion, from the willingness of its devotees to submit to martyrdom for it."

"Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing!"

"The vicious lover is the follower of earthly Love who desires the body rather than the soul; his heart is set on what is mutable and must therefore be inconstant. And as soon as the body he loves begins to pass the first flower of its beauty, he "spreads his wings and flies away," giving the lie to all his pretty speeches and dishonoring his vows, whereas the lover whose heart is touched by moral beauties is constant all his life, for he has become one with what will never fade."

"But what if man had eyes to see the true beauty—the divine beauty, I mean, pure and clear and unalloyed, not clogged with the pollutions of mortality and all the colours and vanities of human life—thither looking, and holding converse with the true beauty simple and divine?"

"Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity—I mean the true simplicity of a rightly and nobly ordered mind and character, not that other simplicity which is only a euphemism for folly."

"Nimia est miseria nimis pulchrum esse hominem."

"When the candles are out all women are fair."

"What we call objective reality is, in the last analysis, what is common to many thinking beings, and could be common to all; this common part, we shall see, can only be the harmony expressed by mathematical laws. It is this harmony then which is the sole objective reality, the only truth we can attain; and when I add that the universal harmony of the world is the source of all beauty, it will be understood what price we should attach to the slow and difficult progress which little by little enables us to know it better."

"'Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call, But the joint force and full result of all."

"Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare, And beauty draws us with a single hair."

"Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul."

"No longer shall the bodice aptly lac'd From thy full bosom to thy slender waist, That air and harmony of shape express, Fine by degrees, and beautifully less."

"For, when with beauty we can virtue join, We paint the semblance of a form divine."

"Nimis in veritate, et similitudinis quam pulchritudinis amantior."

"Looking at beauty in the world is the first step of purify the mind. A corrupted mind can't recognize the beauty of the world. A pure mind perceives it."

"Beauty is the purest feeling of the soul. Beauty arises when soul is satisfied."

"Beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we still are just able to endure, and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us. Every angel is terrifying."

"Is she not more than painting can express, Or youthful poets fancy, when they love?"

"Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies, for instance."

"Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty – a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show. The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry."

"I do not understand where the 'beauty' and 'harmony' of nature are supposed to be found. Throughout the animal kingdom, animals ruthlessly prey upon each other. Most of them are either cruelly killed by other animals or slowly die of hunger. For my part, I am unable to see any very great beauty or harmony in the tapeworm. Let it not be said that this creature is sent as a punishment for our sins, for it is more prevalent among animals than among humans. I suppose what is meant by this 'beauty' and 'harmony' are such things as the beauty of the starry heavens. But one should remember that the stars every now and again explode and reduce everything in their neighborhood to a vague mist. Beauty, in any case, is subjective and exists only in the eye of the beholder."

"The beauty that addresses itself to the eyes is only the spell of the moment; the eye of the body is not always that of the soul."

"Some say a host of cavalry, some say infantry. Some say a host of ships, is the loveliest thing Upon this dark earth; but I say It's whatever you love."

"Beauty endures only for as long as it can be seen; Goodness, beautiful today, will remain so tomorrow."

"True beauty is in the mind; and the expression of the features depends more upon the moral nature than most people are aware of."

"All things of beauty are not theirs alone Who hold the fee; but unto him no less Who can enjoy, than unto them who own, Are sweetest uses given to possess."

"Das Unendliche endlich dargestellt ist Schönheit."

"Damals war nichts heilig, als das Schöne."

"Die Wahrheit ist vorhanden für den Weisen. Die Schönheit für ein fühlend Herz."

"Das ist das Loos des Schönen auf der Erde!"

"And ne'er did Grecian chisel trace A Nymph, a Naiad, or a Grace, Of finer form, or lovelier face!"

"There was a soft and pensive grace, A cast of thought upon her face, That suited well the forehead high, The eyelash dark, and downcast eve."

"Spirit of Beauty, whose sweet impulses, Flung like the rose of dawn across the sea, Alone can flush the exalted consciousness With shafts of sensible divinity— Light of the world, essential loveliness."

"Why thus longing, thus forever sighing For the far-off, unattain'd, and dim, While the beautiful all round thee lying Offers up its low, perpetual hymn?"

"Beauty comes, we know not how, as an emanation from sources deeper than itself."

"For her own person, It beggar'd all description."

"Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold."

"Heaven bless thee! Thou hast the sweetest face I ever looked on; Sir, as I have a soul, she is an angel."

"Of Nature's gifts thou may'st with lilies boast And with the half-blown rose."

"Beauty is brought by judgment of the eye, Not utter'd by base sale of chapmen's tongues."

"Beauty doth varnish age."

"Beauty is a witch, Against whose charms faith melteth into blood."

"Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good; A shining gloss, that fadeth suddenly; A flower that dies, when first it 'gins to bud; A brittle glass, that's broken presently: A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower, Lost, faded, broken, dead within an hour."

"He hath a daily beauty in his life."

"I'll not shed her blood; Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow, And smooth as monumental alabaster."

"Beauty itself doth of itself persuade The eyes of men without an orator."

"O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night, Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear: Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!"

"Her beauty makes This vault a feasting presence full of light."

"O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!"

"Say that she frown; I'll say she looks as clear As morning roses newly wash'd with dew."

"'Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on."

"There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple: If the ill spirit have so fair a house, Good things will strive to dwell with't."

"I've fought the good fight. And now it’s all over, there's an indescribable peace. ... I believe in Michelangelo, Velásquez and Rembrandt; in the might of design, the mystery of color, the redemption of all things by beauty everlasting and the message of Art that has made these hands blessed. Amen. Amen."

"A lovely lady, garmented in light From her own beauty."

"She died in beauty—like a rose blown from its parent stem."

"Beauty is a magnet: repels some, attracts many, leaves no one unmoved."

"O beloved Pan, and all ye other gods of this place, grant me to become beautiful in the inner man."

"Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee."

"Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?"

"To me the most beautiful thing is vulnerability."

"The saying that beauty is but skin deep, is but a skin-deep saying."

"For all that faire is, is by nature good; That is a signe to know the gentle blood."

"Her face so faire, as flesh it seemed not, But heavenly pourtraict of bright angels' hew, Cleare as the skye withouten blame or blot, Through goodly mixture of complexion's dew."

"Beauty, my dear Sir, is not so much a quality of the object beheld, as an effect in him who beholds it. If our sight were longer or shorter, or if our constitution were different, what now appears beautiful to us would seem misshapen, and what we now think misshapen we should regard as beautiful. The most beautiful hand seen through the microscope will appear horrible. Some things are beautiful at a distance, but ugly near; thus things regarded in themselves, and in relation to God, are neither ugly nor beautiful. Therefore, he who says that God has created the world, so that it might be beautiful, is bound to adopt one of the two alternatives, either that God created the world for the sake of men's pleasure and eyesight, or else that He created men's pleasure and eyesight for the sake of the world. ...Perfection and imperfection are names which do not differ much from the names beauty and ugliness. ... This I know, that between finite and infinite there is no comparison; so that the difference between God and the greatest and most excellent created thing is no less than the difference between God and the least created thing."

"L'admiration pour le beau se rapporte toujours à la Divinité."

"They seemed to whisper: "How handsome she is! What wavy tresses! what sweet perfume! Under her mantle she hides her wings; Her flower of a bonnet is just in bloom.""

"Beauty is nothing other than the promise of happiness."

"For the sublime and the beautiful and the interesting, you don't have to look far away."

"Beauty, like truth, never is so glorious as when it goes the plainest."

"She wears a rose in her hair, At the twilight's dreamy close: Her face is fair,—how fair Under the rose!"

"Formosa facies muta commendatio est."

"Part of the beauty of me is that I am very rich."

"Beauty more than bitterness, makes the heart break"

"Forever Seek for Beauty, she only Fights with man against Death!"

"A daughter of the gods, divinely tall, And most divinely fair."

"Do not beautify your appearance, but be beautiful in your way of life."

"How should I gauge what beauty is her dole, Who cannot see her countenance for her soul, As birds see not the casement for the sky? And as 'tis check they prove its presence by, I know not of her body till I find My flight debarred the heaven of her mind."

"Whose body other ladies well might bear As soul,—yea, which it profanation were For all but you to take as fleshy woof, Being spirit truest proof."

"Whose form is as a grove Hushed with the cooing of an unseen dove."

"Thoughtless of beauty, she was Beauty's self."

"Seeing beauty in a flower could awaken humans, however briefly, to the beauty that is an essential part of their own innermost being, their true nature."

"The first recognition of beauty was one of the most significant events in the evolution of human consciousness. The feelings of joy and love are intrinsically connected to that recognition. Without our fully realizing it, flowers would become for us an expression in form of that which is most high, most sacred, and ultimately formless within ourselves."

"It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness."

"Bricks are considered to be the first material created by human intelligence from the four elements: earth, air, water, and fire. ...The great variety of designs and effects that artists of the past, especially the Arabs... were able to create in their brickwork, assembled with an element so monotonous... can be compared only with the beauty and attractiveness a romantic poet attained by adjusting his verses to the rigidity of a formal meter."

"There is more or less of pathos in all true beauty. The delight it awakens has an undefinable and, as it were, luxurious sadness, which is perhaps one element of its might. It may be that this feeling springs from a sense of unattained good, of a perfection of being quite at variance with the present, which the beautiful never fails to suggest."

"Nearly all black and brown skins are beautiful, but a beautiful white skin is rare."

"All the beauty of the world, 'tis but skin deep."

"Gratior ac pulchro veniens in corpore virtus."

"Nimium ne crede colori."

"It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it."

"Ask a toad what is beauty, ... he will answer that it is a female with two great round eyes coming out of her little head, a large flat head, a yellow belly and a brown back."

"O let me meet my days with quiet grace So all who gaze on me may truly say: "Lo, there is one who walked in Beauty's way!""

"And as pale sickness does invade Your frailer part, the breaches made In that fair lodging still more clear Make the bright guest, your soul, appear."

"The yielding marble of her snowy breast."

"That beautiful flower in that vase has not spoken a word tonight; it will never speak a word, but, nevertheless, through its beauty and magnificent silence it is lifting up, and making more Christlike every human being in this room."

"Beauty is its own excuse."

"I pray the prayer of Plato old: God make thee beautiful within."

"[S]ome scientists focus on ideal beauty, others on empirical truth. My own approach, following a great tradition going back to Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler, has been to use beauty as a guide to truth."

"[T]he man who falls in love with beauty is quite different from the man who loves a girl and feels she is beautiful and can see what is beautiful about her."

"The gospel allies itself with all that is beautiful in the universe, as truly as with all that is noble and pure."

"Taught from their infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison."

"And beauty born of murmuring sound."

"Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair, Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair, But all things else about her drawn From May-time and the cheerful Dawn."

"True beauty dwells in deep retreats, Whose veil is unremoved Till heart with heart in concord beats, And the lover is beloved."

"Elysian beauty, melancholy grace, Brought from a pensive, though a happy place."

"Alas! how little can a moment show Of an eye where feeling plays In ten thousand dewy rays; A face o'er which a thousand shadows go!"

"What's female beauty, but an air divine, Through which the mind's all-gentle graces shine! They, like the Sun, irradiate all between; The body charms, because the soul is seen."

"“Everything that’s miserable in the world,” Nick the dwarf once said to me, “is because of beauty.” “Not truth or goodness?” I’d asked. “Oh, they help. But beauty is the culprit, the real principle of evil.” “Not wealth?” “Money is beautiful.”"

": How beautiful are thine eyes, with which thou hast charmed all Egyptians, both men and women! : Beautiful as they may be while I am alive, so ghastly they will be to look upon in the grave!"

"Ghritachi and Menaka and Rambha and Purvachitti and Swayamprabha and Urvashi and Misrakeshi and Dandagauri and Varuthini and Gopali and Sahajanya and Kumbhayoni and Prajagara and Chitrasena and Chitralekha and Saha and Madhuraswana, these and others by thousands, possessed of eyes like lotus leaves, who were employed in enticing the hearts of persons practising rigid austerities, danced there. And possessing slim waists and fair large hips, they began to perform various evolutions, shaking their deep bosoms, and casting their glances around, and exhibiting other attractive attitudes capable of stealing the hearts and resolutions and minds of the spectators."

"Tell me, shepherds, have you seen My Flora pass this way? In shape and feature Beauty's queen, In pastoral array."

"'Tis evanescence that endures; The loveliness that dies the soonest has the longest life. The rainbow is a momentary thing, The afterglows are ashes while we gaze."

"Too fair to worship, too divine to love."

"The maid who modestly conceals Her beauties, while she hides, reveals: Gives but a glimpse, and fancy draws Whate'er the Grecian Venus was."

"Not more the rose, the queen of flowers, Outblushes all the bloom of bower, Than she unrivall'd grace discloses; The sweetest rose, where all are roses."

"To weave a garland for the rose, And think thus crown'd 'twould lovelier be, Were far less vain than to suppose That silks and gems add grace to thee."

"Die when you will, you need not wear At heaven's Court a form more fair Than Beauty here on Earth has given: Keep but the lovely looks we see The voice we hear, and you will be An angel ready-made for heaven."

"An' fair was her sweet bodie, Yet fairer was her mind:— Menie's the queen among the flowers, The wale o' womankind."

"Fair are the flowers and the children, but their subtle suggestion is fairer; Rare is the roseburst of dawn, but the secret that clasps it is rarer; Sweet the exultance of song, but the strain that precedes it is sweeter And never was poem yet writ, but the meaning outmastered the meter."