quotations about beauty
"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"
Ask me where beauty is, I'll say
'Tis in sweet maiden's witchery;
Amid the beams of her flashing eye
When pleasure's cup is sparkling high,
And new-born love's first artless glances
Illume her brow,
And joy within her young heart dances
For the first vow;
When she knows not of blighting care,
And all is bright, and fresh, and fair;
And fancy's banner is unfurled,
Tinting with rose her future world;
Nor cloud, nor mist dims in her eye
The sunshine of life's morning sky,
That, with such gay and golden beams,
Colours her happy youth with dreams.
C. B. LANGSTON
"Where Is Beauty?"
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
Much that is beautiful must be discarded
So that we may resemble a taller
Impression of ourselves.
JOHN ASHBERY
"Illustration"
What is love at first sight but a proof of the powerful but silent language of physiognomy?
MARY CLEMMER AMES
attributed, Edge-tools of Speech
Beauty is the gift from God.
ARISTOTLE
Beauty in woman is that potent alchemy which transforms men into asses.
ABRAHAM MILLER
Unmoral Maxims
Beauty
Is the fume-track of necessity. This thought
Is therapeutic. If, after several
Applications, you do not find
Relief, consult your family physician.
ROBERT PENN WARREN
"Island of Summer"
Beautiful peaches are not always the best flavored; neither are handsome women the most amiable.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
In every man's heart there is a secret nerve that answers to the vibrations of beauty.
CHRISTOPHER MORLEY
Travels in Philadelphia
The creator and arbiter of beauty is the heart; to the male rattlesnake the female rattlesnake is the loveliest thing in nature.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"Epigrams of a Cynic"
Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together.
PETRARCH
De Remedies
Beautiful things may be admired, if not loved.
L. FRANK BAUM
The Tin Woodman of Oz
The power of finding beauty in the humblest things makes home happy and life lovely.
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
Jack and Jill: A Village Story
In life, as in art, the beautiful moves in curves.
EDWARD BULWER LYTTON
What Will He Do With It?
Beauty is objectified pleasure.
GEORGE SANTAYANA
The Sense of Beauty
The beauty that men seek is half a dream--
Where'er we wander, yet it lies afar;
It touches with its wand a setting star,
It stirs the ripple of an ebbing stream.
And though we run beyond the dawning gleam,
Or kneel to worship at an altar bright,
We may not know the soul of its delight,
Or more than marvel at its palest beam.
KENNETH RAND
"The True Magic"
Horns to bulls wise Nature lends;
Horses she with hoofs defends;
Hares with nimble feet relieves;
Dreadful teeth to lions gives;
Fishes learn through streams to slide;
Birds through yielding air to glide;
Men with courage she supplies;
But to women these denies.
What then gives she? Beauty, this
Both their arms and armour is:
She, that can this weapon use,
Fire and sword with ease subdues.
ANACREON
"Beauty"
So audacious has Beauty become in these latter days, so proudly she walks abroad, making so superb an appeal to the desire of the eye, thighed like Artemis, and bosomed like Aphrodite, or at whiles a fairy creature of ivory and gossamer and fragrance, with a look in her eyes of secret gardens; and so much is the wide world at her feet, and one with her in the vanity of her fairness--that I sometimes fear an impending dies irae, when the dormant spirit of Puritanism will reassert itself, and some stern priests thunder from the pulpit of worldly vanities and the wrath to come.
RICHARD LE GALLIENNE
"The Persecutions of Beauty", Vanishing Roads and Other Essays
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