Beauty

"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."