Beauty quotes

Beauty

2K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.

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Beauty quotes (page 31 of 98)

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John Ruskin Art Critic, Writer
Beauty

"There is a certain period of the soul-culture when it begins to interfere with some of characters of typical beauty belonging to the bodily frame, the stirring of the intellect wearing down the flesh, and the moral enthusiasm burning its way out to heaven, through the emaciation of the earthen vessel; and there is, in this indication of subduing the mortal by the immortal part, an ideal glory of perhaps a purer and higher range than that of the more perfect material form. We conceive, I think, more nobly of the weak presence of Paul than of, the fair and ruddy countenance of David."

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John Ruskin Art Critic, Writer
Beauty

"Like other beautiful things in this world, its end (that of a shaft) is to be beautiful; and, in proportion to its beauty, it receives permission to be otherwise useless. We do not blame emeralds and rubies because we cannot make them into heads of hammers."

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John Muir Naturalist, Writer
Beauty

"Fresh beauty opens one's eyes wherever it is really seen, but the very abundance and completeness of the common beauty that besets our steps prevents its being absorbed and appreciated. It is a good thing, therefore, to make short excursions now and then to the bottom of the sea among dulse and coral, or up among the clouds on mountain-tops, or in balloons, or even to creep like worms into dark holes and caverns underground, not only to learn something of what is going on in those out-of-the-way places, but to see better what the sun sees on our return to common every-day beauty."

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Jean Paul Writer
Beauty

"Beauty attracts us men; but if, like an armed magnet it is pointed, beside, with gold and silver, it attracts with tenfold power."

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Honore de Balzac Novelist
Beauty

"Beauty is the greatest of human powers. Any power without counterbalance or control becomes autocratic and leads to abuse and to folly. Despotism in a government is insanity; in woman, fantasy."

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Poppy King Businesswoman
Beauty

"At the end of the day, women must understand how they look is important, but not all-important; that there are different ideas of beauty. It is in the eye of the beholder and it comes from within."

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Peter London Artist, Educator
Beauty

"We seem to have lost contact with the earlier, more profound functions of art, which have always had to do with personal and collective empowerment, personal growth, communion with this world, and the search for what lies beneath and above this world."

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David Hume Philosopher, Historian
Beauty

"If the contemplation, even of inanimate beauty, is so delightful; if it ravishes the senses, even when the fair form is foreign tous: What must be the effects of moral beauty? And what influence must it have, when it embellishes our own mind, and is the result of our own reflection and industry?"

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Diana Vreeland Fashion Editor
Beauty

"Beauty has nothing to do with possession. If possession and beauty must go together, then we are lost souls. A beautiful flower is not to be possessed, it's there to be beheld. … It's there for your pleasure."

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Confucius Philosopher
Beauty

"It is goodness that gives to a neighborhood its beauty. One who is free to choose, yet does not prefer to dwell among the good - how can he be accorded the name of wise?"

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Blaise Pascal Mathematician, Physicist, Philosopher
Beauty

"[On vanity:] The nose of Cleopatra: if it had been shorter, the face of the earth would have changed."

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Alan Ball Screenwriter, Director, Producer
Beauty

"It’s hard to stay mad, when there’s so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I’m seeing it all at once, and it’s too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that’s about to burst... And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can’t feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life..."

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Alan Ball Screenwriter, Director, Producer
Beauty

"That's the day I realized that there was this entire life behind things, and this incredibly benevolent force that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever... Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world, I feel like I can't take it, and my heart is going to cave in."

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William Butler Yeats Poet, Playwright
Beauty

"O cloud-pale eyelids, dream-dimmed eyes, The poets labouring all their days To build a perfect beauty in rhyme Are overthrown by a woman's gaze."

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William Shakespeare Playwright, Poet
Beauty

"Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good; a shining gloss that fadeth suddenly; a flower that dies when it begins to bud; a doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower, lost, faded, broken, dead within an hour."

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