I would warn you that I do not attribute to nature either beauty or deformity, order or confusion. Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or ugly, well-ordered or confused.
—Baruch Spinoza (1632–77) Dutch Philosopher
At the heart of all beauty lies something inhuman, and these hills, the softness of the sky, the outline of these trees at this very minute lose the illusory meaning with which we had clothed them, henceforth more remote than a lost paradise… that denseness and that strangeness of the world is absurd.
—Albert Camus (1913–60) Algerian-born French Philosopher, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist, Author
It is better to be first with an ugly woman than the hundredth with a beauty.
—Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American Novelist, Human Rights Activist
Why don’t I see goodness and beauty everywhere? Because you cannot see outside of you what you fail to see inside.
—Anthony de Mello (1931–87) Indian-born American Theologian
In all ranks of life the human heart yearns for the beautiful; and the beautiful things that God makes are his gift to all alike.
—Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–96) American Abolitionist, Author
It is good to realize that if love and peace can prevail on earth, and if we can teach our children to honor nature’s gifts, the joys and beauties of the outdoors will be here forever.
—Jimmy Carter (b.1924) American Head of State, Military Leader
Beauty is the bait which with delight allures man to enlarge his kind.
—Edmund Spenser (1552–99) English Poet
Beauty is composed of an eternal, invariable element whose quantity is extremely difficult to determine, and a relative element which might be, either by turns or all at once, period, fashion, moral, passion.
—Jean-luc Godard (b.1930) French-born Swiss Film Director, Film Critic
Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies.
—John Donne (1572–1631) English Poet, Cleric
The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.
—J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) British Scholar, Author
Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.
—Franz Kafka (1883–1924) Austrian Novelist, Short Story Writer
Our hearts are drunk with a beauty our eyes could never see.
—George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish Author, Poet, Editor, Critic, Painter
Ugliness creates bitterness. Ugliness is an eroding force on the people of our land. We are all here to try to change that.
—Lady Bird Johnson (1912–2007) First Lady of the United States, Conservationist
There is beauty everywhere. Just put your heart into your eyes.
—Hans Taeger
You can take no credit for beauty at sixteen. But if you are beautiful at sixty, it will be your soul’s own doing.
—Marie Stopes (1880–1958) British Author, Social Activist
Far away, there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations; I may not reach them but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.
—Louisa May Alcott (1832–88) American Novelist
The moment one gives a close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world unto itself.
—Henry Miller (1891–1980) American Novelist, Painter
A little beauty is preferable to much wealth.
—Sa’Di (Musharrif Od-Din Muslih Od-Din) (1184–1283) Persian Poet
Beauty: The adjustment of all parts proportionately so that one cannot add or subtract or change without impairing the harmony of the whole.
—Leon Battista Alberti (1404–72) Italian Polymath, Author, Artist, Architect, Poet
There is no more potent antidote to low sensuality than admiration of the beautiful. — All the higher arts of design are essentially chaste, without respect to the object. — They purify the thoughts, as tragedy purifies the passions. — Their accidental effects are not worth consideration; for there are souls to whom even a vestal is not holy.
—August Wilhelm Schlegel (1767–1845) German Poet, Literary Critic, Scholar
To live differently, to love differently, to think differently, or to try to. Is the danger of beauty so great that it is better to live without it (the standard model)? Or to fall into her arms fire to fire? There is no discovery without risk and what you risk reveals what you value.
—Jeanette Winterson (b.1959) English Novelist, Journalist
Beauty addresses itself chiefly to sight, but there is a beauty for the hearing too, as in certain combinations so words and in all kinds of music; for melodies and cadences are beautiful; and minds that lift themselves above the realm of sense to a higher order are aware of beauty in the conduct of life, in actions, in character, in the pursuits of the intellect; and there is the beauty of the virtues.
—Plotinus (c.205–270 CE) Greek Philosopher, Founder of Neoplatonism
Taught from infancy that beauty is woman’s scepter, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.
—Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–97) English Writer, Feminist
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American First Lady, Diplomat, Humanitarian
Beauty is the purgation of superfluities.
—Michelangelo (1475–1564) Italian Painter, Sculptor, Architect, Poet, Engineer
Then he felt quite ashamed, and hid his head under his wing; for he did not know what to do, he was so happy, and yet not at all proud. He had been persecuted and despised for his ugliness, and now he heard them say he was the most beautiful of all the birds. Even the elder-tree bent down its bows into the water before him, and the sun shone warm and bright. Then he rustled his feathers, curved his slender neck, and cried joyfully, from the depths of his heart, “I never dreamed of such happiness as this, while I was an ugly duckling.”
—Hans Christian Andersen (1805–75) Danish Author, Poet, Short Story Writer
There is in true beauty, as in courage, somewhat which narrow souls cannot dare to admire.
—William Congreve (1670–1729) English Playwright, Poet
Beauty isn’t worth thinking about; what’s important is your mind. You don’t want a fifty-dollar haircut on a fifty-cent head.
—Garrison Keillor (b.1942) American Author, Humorist, Radio Personality
Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.
—Anne Frank (1929–45) Holocaust Victim
Beauty is power; a smile is its sword.
—Charles Reade
There are as many kinds of beauty as there are habitual ways of seeking happiness.
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–67) French Poet, Art Critic, Essayist, Translator
There is no cosmetic for beauty like happiness.
—Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington (1789–1849) Irish Novelist, Writer
The beauty of the world, which is so soon to perish, has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder.
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist
The beautiful seems right by force of beauty, and the feeble wrong because of weakness.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–61) English Poet, Translator
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 too much of a prima donna.
—E. M. Forster (1879–1970) English Novelist, Short Story Writer, Essayist
Being is desirable because it is identical with Beauty, and Beauty is loved because it is Being. We ourselves possess Beauty when we are true to our own being; ugliness is in going over to another order; knowing ourselves, we are beautiful; in self-ignorance, we are ugly.
—Plotinus (c.205–270 CE) Greek Philosopher, Founder of Neoplatonism
All the things that truly matter–beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace–arise from beyond the mind.
—Eckhart Tolle (b.1948) German Spiritual Writer, Public Speaker, Spiritual Teacher
The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes. If you foolishly ignore beauty, you will soon find yourself without it. Your life will be impoverished. But if you invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life.
—Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American Architect
One evening I sat Beauty on my knees –And I found her bitter –And I reviled her.
—Arthur Rimbaud (1854–91) French Poet
Had the price of looking been blindness, I would have looked.
—Ralph Ellison (1914–1994) American Novelist
The fragrance always stays in the hand that gives the rose.
—Hada Bejar
I know the world is filled with troubles and many injustices. But reality is as beautiful as it is ugly. I think it is just as important to sing about beautiful mornings as it is to talk about slums. I just couldn’t write anything without hope in it.
—Oscar Hammerstein II (1895–1960) American Songwriter, Composer, Theater Producer, Writer
The most natural beauty in the world is honesty and moral truth; for all beauty is truth. True features make the beauty of a face; and true proportions the beauty of architecture; as true measures that of harmony and music. In poetry, which is all fable, truth still is the perfection.
—Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury
Beauty is the promise of happiness.
—Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle) (1783–1842) French Writer
O, thou art fairer than the evening air clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.
—Christopher Marlowe (1564–93) English Playwright, Poet, Translator
Beauty is rather a light that plays over the symmetry of things than that symmetry itself.
—Plotinus (c.205–270 CE) Greek Philosopher, Founder of Neoplatonism
Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike.
—John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American Naturalist, Botanist, Writer, Engineer
What is beautiful is good, and who is good will soon be beautiful.
—Sappho (c.630–c.580 BCE) Greek Poet
Take back the beauty and wit you bestow upon me; leave me my own mediocrity of agreeableness and genius, but leave me also my sincerity, my constancy, and my plain dealing; ’tis all I have to recommend me to the esteem either of others or myself.
—Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762) English Aristocrat, Poet, Novelist, Writer
Beauty is desired in order that it may be befouled; not for its own sake, but for the joy brought by the certainty of profaning it.
—Georges Bataille (1897–1962) French Philosopher, Writer
Beauty is the index of a larger fact than wisdom.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–94) American Physician, Essayist
Touched by beauty we enter the forefields of enlightenment. Flying higher and higher one may discover that there is nothing else but beauty. Isn’t it a pity that we’re not yet ready to keep it in permanent view?
—Hans Taeger
The ever-present phenomenon ceases to exist for our senses. It was a city dweller, or a prisoner, or a blind man suddenly given his sight, who first noted natural beauty.
—Remy de Gourmont (1858–1915) French Poet, Novelist, Critic
Call for the grandest of all earthly spectacles, what is that? It is the sun going to his rest.
—Thomas de Quincey (1785–1859) English Essayist, Writer, Author, Scholar
Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not fine yourself beautiful yet, act as does the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful: he cuts away here, he smoothes there, he makes this line lighter, this other purer, until a lovely face has grown his work. So do you also: cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labor to make all one glow or beauty and never cease chiseling your statue, until there shall shine out on you from it the godlike splendor of virtue, until you see the perfect goodness surely established in the stainless shrine.
—Plotinus (c.205–270 CE) Greek Philosopher, Founder of Neoplatonism
The beauty seen, is partly in him who sees it.
—Christian Nestell Bovee (1820–1904) American Writer, Aphorist
People are like stained glass windows—the true beauty can be seen only when there is light from within. The darker the night, the brighter the windows.
—Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (1926-2004) American Psychiatrist
The beauty of the soul shines out when a man bears with composure one heavy mischance after another, not because he does not feel them, but because he is a man of high and heroic temper.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen nor even touched, but just felt in the heart.
—Helen Keller (1880–1968) American Author
Beauty is the first present nature gives to women and the first it takes away.
—George Brossin Mere (c.1610–85) French Intellectual, Author
Do you love me because I’m beautiful, or am I beautiful because you love me?
—Oscar Hammerstein II (1895–1960) American Songwriter, Composer, Theater Producer, Writer
I don’t think of all the misery, but of all the beauty that still remains.
—Anne Frank (1929–45) Holocaust Victim
By cultivating the beautiful we scatter the seeds of heavenly flowers, as by doing good we cultivate those that belong to humanity.
—John Howard
Cherish your visions. Cherish your ideals. Cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all heavenly environment; of these, if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built.
—James Allen (1864–1912) British Philosophical Writer
Never regard study as a duty but as an enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which your later works belong.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.
—Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian Head of State
Beauty and wisdom are seldom found together.
—Petronius Roman Courtier, Novelist
No one ever called me pretty when I was a little girl.
—Marilyn Monroe (1926–62) American Actor, Model, Singer
It is the beautiful bird that gets caged.
—Chinese Proverb
A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.
—Walt Whitman (1819–92) American Poet, Essayist, Journalist, American, Poet, Essayist, Journalist
Talent, like beauty, to be pardoned, must be obscure and unostentatious.
—Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington (1789–1849) Irish Novelist, Writer
Everything has its beauty but not everyone sees it.
—Confucius (551–479 BCE) Chinese Philosopher
I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.
—e. e. cummings (1894–1962) American Poet, Writer, Painter
Where does beauty begin and where does it end? It ends where the artist begins.
—John Cage (1912–92) American Composer, Philosopher, Poet, Artist