“What we are pursuing is beauty, nothing but beauty. It's not true beauty if we didn't create it. Creating beauty with beauty is not true beauty either; real beauty is achieved by transforming the ugly into the beautiful.”

—  Mo Yan, book The Republic of Wine

Source: The Republic of Wine (1992), Chapter Four, Section V

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "What we are pursuing is beauty, nothing but beauty. It's not true beauty if we didn't create it. Creating beauty with b…" by Mo Yan?
Mo Yan photo
Mo Yan19
Chinese novelist 1955

Related quotes

Henry Adams photo

“I know of nothing useful in life except what is beautiful or creates beauty.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

Mr. Wharton in Ch. IV
Esther: A Novel (1884)

Prem Rawat photo

“But there is a nature which dwells inside also. Just enjoy that also. There are beautiful hills, beautiful sceneries, and beautiful things created for you by God, but there is a scenery, beautiful mountains, beautiful air, beautiful sound, beautiful light inside also created for you.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Boulder, Colorado August 28, 1971 I Am a Road
1970s

Nisargadatta Maharaj photo

“God is not only true and good, he is also beautiful (satyam-shivam-sundaram). He creates beauty – for the joy of it. (…) God does not aim at beauty – whatever he does is beautiful. Would you say that a flower is trying to be beautiful? It is beautiful by its very nature. Similarly God is perfection itself, not an effort at perfection. (…) whatever is perceived blissfully is beautiful. Bliss is the essence of beauty.”

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) Indian guru

Beauty
Source: "I am That." P.95.

“Physical beauty wasn't the same as True Beauty, any more than pretty ugly meant truly ugly or Magnetic North meant True North.”

Justina Chen (1968) American writer

Source: North of Beautiful

Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury photo

“The most natural Beauty in the World is Honesty, and Moral Truth. For all Beauty is Truth. True Features make the Beauty of a Face; and true Proportions the Beauty of Architecture; as true Measures that of Harmony and Musick.”

Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671–1713) English politician and Earl

Vol. 1, p. 77; "Sensus Communis".
Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1711)

Bram van Velde photo

“The world of architecture – and of works conceived for architecture – tends towards beauty. True beauty tends towards ugliness and panic.”

Bram van Velde (1895–1981) Dutch painter

short quotes, May 1972; p. 87
1970's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde (1970 - 1972)

Joseph Joubert photo

“What good is modesty? — It makes us seem more beautiful when we are beautiful, and less ugly when we are ugly.”

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist

Jonathan Safran Foer photo

“Why do beautiful songs make you sad?" "Because they aren't true." "Never?" "Nothing is beautiful and true.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005), p. 43

Related topics