"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."

"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."

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

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

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

"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.""

"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."

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

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

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

"Handsome is that handsome does."

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

"Beauty is not so much performance as promise."

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

"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."

"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."

"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?"

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

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

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

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

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

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

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

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

"Beauty without expression tires."

"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."

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

"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?"

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

"Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue."

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

"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."

"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?"

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

"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."

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

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

"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."

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

"Beauty would save the world."

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

"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."

"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."