BEAUTY QUOTES XI

quotations about beauty

In the contemplation of beauty we are raised above ourselves, the passions are silenced and we are happy in the recognition of a good that we do not seek to possess.

GEORGE SANTAYANA

The Sense of Beauty


Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

The Conduct of Life


Choosing beauty over content (or choosing beauty as content) is always an act of sedition. If we accept the cant of official culture, we must believe that the beauty we steal from any man-made thing is stolen from its more virtuous and metaphysical backstory, wherein "real" beauty is said to reside.

DAVE HICKEY

The Invisible Dragon


Trust a girl of sixteen for knowing well if she is pretty; concerning her plainness she may be ignorant.

ELIZABETH GASKELL

Mary Barton


Most people tend to think the best of those who are blessed with beauty; we have difficulty imagining that physical perfection can conceal twisted emotions or a damaged mind.

DEAN KOONTZ

Odd Thomas


It is foolish to wish for beauty. Sensible people never either desire it for themselves or care about it in others. If the mind be but well cultivated, and the heart well disposed, no one ever cares for the exterior.

ANNE BRONTE

Agnes Grey


Your voice would have silenced merle and thrush,
And the rose outbloomed would have blushed to blush,
And Summer, seeing you, paused, and known
That the glow of your beauty outshone its own.

ALFRED AUSTIN

"My Winter Rose", Lyrical Poems


Beauty's voice speaks gently: it creeps only into the most awakened souls.

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

Thus Spoke Zarathustra


If I conceive of a woman so transcendingly beautiful that upon her beauty no improvement can be made, I do not conceive of the principle itself of beauty, but only of its incarnation. In the woman, and through her, I perceive that by virtue of which she becomes beautiful. When I see a beautiful woman, I see in her a more beautiful woman still; for in every person we find some fault, and by eliminating the fault, we attain nearer to perfection. But in and through that more beautiful woman still, I perceive that which gives the character of beauty. But this principle can never be perceived directly in itself; it can be perceived only when manifesting itself in some person or thing, and even then only as transcending.

WILLIAM BATCHELDER GREENE

The Doctrine of Life


Beauty is when your outside intrigues people and your inside makes them stay.

ANONYMOUS


As everyone knows, beauty is at its most poignant when the cold hand of Death holds poised to wither it imminently.

JACQUELINE CAREY

Kushiel's Dart


[Beauty is] a delicate bait with a deadly hook; a sweet panther with a devouring paunch, a sour poison in a silver pot.

JOHN LYLY

Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit


There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays


You cannot pluck roses without fear of thorns
Nor enjoy a fair wife without danger of horns.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Poor Richard's Almanack, 1734


The fairest cheek hath oftentimes a soul
Leprous as sin itself.

THOMAS DEKKER

Old Fortunatus


Beauty in a woman is a moving thing,
Yet sometimes just the patient lack of it
Will pierce the heart to deeper poignancies,
And, melting, draw a note of tenderness
That not the fairest woman could evoke!

DONALD EVANS

"Shrines of Unloveliness"


And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of love, is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the sake of that other beauty, using these steps only, and from one going on to two, and from two to all fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is.

PLATO

The Symposium


Beauty when most unclothed is clothed best.

PHINEAS FLETCHER

Sicelides


The perfection of her face created a sense of emptiness--like a house with no curtains in the window.

JEFF ABBOTT

Black Jack Point


Beauty is a symbol of goodness; the admiration we feel for it is a symbol of the reverence inspired by the moral law.

ERMANNO BENCIVENGA

Exercises in Constructive Imagination

Tags: Ermanno Bencivenga