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 (205–70) Ancient Greek Philosopher
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
Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.
—Anne Frank (1929–45) German Holocaust Victim
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
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
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
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
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
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
Beauty is the bait which with delight allures man to enlarge his kind.
—Edmund Spenser (1552–99) English Poet
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
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, Political leader, Scholar, Politician
I don’t think of all the misery, but of all the beauty that still remains.
—Anne Frank (1929–45) German Holocaust Victim
O, thou art fairer than the evening air clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.
—Christopher Marlowe (1564–93) English Playwright, Poet, Translator
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
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 Theoretical Physicist, Philosopher, Author, Activist
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
Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.
—John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American Naturalist, Botanist, Writer, Engineer
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
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 (205–70) Ancient Greek Philosopher
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) America Architect, Writer, Educator
No one ever called me pretty when I was a little girl.
—Marilyn Monroe (1926–62) American Actor, Model, Singer
A little beauty is preferable to much wealth.
—Sa’Di (Musharrif Od-Din Muslih Od-Din) (1184–1283) Persian Poet
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 Children’s Books Writer, Poet, Artist
Talent, like beauty, to be pardoned, must be obscure and unostentatious.
—Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington (1789–1849) Irish Novelist, Writer
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
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
Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.
—Franz Kafka (1883–1924) Austrian Novelist, Short Story Writer
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
One evening I sat Beauty on my knees –And I found her bitter –And I reviled her.
—Arthur Rimbaud (1854–91) French Poet
Beauty and wisdom are seldom found together.
—Petronius Roman Courtier, Novelist
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 (205–70) Ancient Greek Philosopher
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
There is no cosmetic for beauty like happiness.
—Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington (1789–1849) Irish Novelist, Writer
Where does beauty begin and where does it end? It ends where the artist begins.
—John Cage (1912–92) American Composer, Philosopher, Poet, Artist
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
Beauty is rather a light that plays over the symmetry of things than that symmetry itself.
—Plotinus (205–70) Ancient Greek Philosopher
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
Our hearts are drunk with a beauty our eyes could never see.
—George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish Author, Poet, Editor, Critic, Painter
Do you love me because I’m beautiful, r am I beautiful because you love me?
—Oscar Hammerstein II (1895–1960) American Songwriter, Composer, Theater Producer, Writer
It is the beautiful bird that gets caged.
—Chinese Proverb