quotations about beauty
The study of beauty is a duel in which the artist cries out in terror before being defeated.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
"Le Confiteor de l'artiste," Le Spleen de Paris
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,"--that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
JOHN KEATS
"Ode on a Grecian Urn"
Much that is beautiful must be discarded
So that we may resemble a taller
Impression of ourselves.
JOHN ASHBERY
"Illustration"
The Nature of Beauty is in the relation of means to an end; the means, the possibilities of stimulation in the motor, visual, auditory, and purely ideal fields; the end, a moment of perfection, of self-complete unity of experience, of favourable stimulation with repose. Beauty is not perfection; but the beauty of an object lies in its permanent possibility of creating the perfect moment. The experience of this moment, the union of stimulation and repose, constitutes the unique aesthetic emotion.
ETHEL PUFFER HOWES
The Psychology of Beauty
The power of finding beauty in the humblest things makes home happy and life lovely.
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
Jack and Jill: A Village Story
This is the essence of beauty--the possession of a quality which excites the human organism to functioning harmonious with its own nature.
ETHEL PUFFER HOWES
The Psychology of Beauty
Beauty in woman is that potent alchemy which transforms men into asses.
ABRAHAM MILLER
Unmoral Maxims
Beauty is not a means, not a way of furthering a thing in the world. It is a result; it belongs to ordering, to form, to aftereffect.
EUDORA WELTY
On Writing
Love is the divine Fire, and Beauty its glowing reflection in the skies of Time.
RICHARD GARNETT
De Flagello Myrtes
When I entreated Life to make me wise,
It drew aside Love's broidered veil of lies;
And perilous Beauty, undivined before,
Beckoned me from the mazes of his eyes.
ELSA BARKER
"The Garden of Rose and Rue", The Book of Love
Beauty is objectified pleasure.
GEORGE SANTAYANA
The Sense of Beauty
Beauty is the gift from God.
ARISTOTLE
In life, as in art, the beautiful moves in curves.
EDWARD BULWER LYTTON
What Will He Do With It?
The queen banishes Snow White because of her beauty. But the dwarves help Snow White because they're smitten by that very beauty. It teaches kids an important lesson: Nothing matters except for your looks.
CRAIG FERGUSON
The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, Jun. 1, 2012
We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.
MAYA ANGELOU
attributed, The Butterfly's Daughter
Beautiful peaches are not always the best flavored; neither are handsome women the most amiable.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
Beautiful things may be admired, if not loved.
L. FRANK BAUM
The Tin Woodman of Oz
Beauty is as summer fruits, which are easy to corrupt, and cannot last; and for the most part it makes a dissolute youth, and an age a little out of countenance; but yet certainly again, if it light well, it maketh virtue shine, and vices blush.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Beauty", The Essays or Counsels
Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked.
ST. AUGUSTINE
City of God
Sculptors, poets, painters, musicians--they're the traditional purveyors of Beauty. But it can as easily be created by a gardener, a farmer, a plumber, a careworker.
CHARLES DE LINT
The Onion Girl