Beauty

"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."

"Gratior ac pulchro veniens in corpore virtus."

"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."

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

"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!"

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

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

"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."

"And beauty born of murmuring sound."

"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."

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

"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."

"“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.”"

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

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

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

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

"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."

"The yielding marble of her snowy breast."

"[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."

"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."

"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."

": 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!"

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Beauty is its own excuse."

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

"[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."

"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."

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

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