"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."

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

"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."

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

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

"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."

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

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

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

"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."

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

"Nimia est miseria nimis pulchrum esse hominem."

"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."

"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?"

"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."

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

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

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

"O quanta species cerebrum non habet!"

"Raram facit misturam cum sapientia forma."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Auxilium non leve vultus habet."

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

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

"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."

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

"An essential quality of beauty is aloofness."

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

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

"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."

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

"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 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."

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

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

"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."

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

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

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

"... 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."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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?"