Quotes about beauty
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“Only the strongest are put through the fire,' Josiah said. 'And the forge creates things of great strength and beauty.'
'Then I shall be truly glorious by the time my tenure ends.”

Sharon Shinn book Archangel

Source: Archangel

Time

“Words betrayed her: beautiful butterflies in her mind; dead moths when she opened her mouth for their release into the world.”

Glen Duncan book I, Lucifer

Source: I, Lucifer

World, Dead

“The lake was silent for some time. Finally, it said:
"I weep for Narcissus, but I never noticed that Narcissus was beautiful. I weep because, each time he knelt beside my banks, I could see, in the depths of his eyes, my own beauty reflected.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

Time

“We can all be beautiful girls.”

Sarah Dessen book Keeping the Moon

Source: Keeping the Moon

Girl

“She was a beautiful woman." Gavner sighed, tracing the outline of one of the elephants. "She just had very bad taste in underwear …"
"And in boyfriends," I added impishly.
Mr. Crepsley burst into laughter at that”

Darren Shan book Vampire Mountain

Source: Vampire Mountain

Laughter

“I've seen you, beauty, and you belong to me now, whoever you are waiting for and if I never see you again, I thought. You belong to me and all Paris belongs to me and I belong to this notebook and this pencil.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Waiting

“Flawed, we're truly interesting, truly memorable, and yes, truly beautiful.”

Justina Chen (1968) American writer

Source: North of Beautiful

“It was a lesson, Magnus thought, to love while you could, love what was fragile and beautiful and imperiled. Nobody was guaranteed forever.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: Born to Endless Night

Love

“I kept it to remind me that although there is evil, there is sometimes beauty and light. You, Jillian. You were always my light.”

Karen Marie Moning book To Tame a Highland Warrior

Source: To Tame a Highland Warrior

Light, Evil

“A beautiful battle is one you don't have to fight.”

Robert Jordan The Wheel of Time

Mat Cauthon
(11 October 2005)
Source: Knife of Dreams

Fight

“Stories aren’t the beauty of what did happen. They’re the beauty of what could happen.”

Brad Meltzer (1970) writer

“After everything that's happened, how can the world still be so beautiful? Because it is.”

Margaret Atwood book Oryx and Crake

Source: Oryx and Crake

World

“He leaned against the door frame, ignoring the kick of adrenaline the sight of her produced. He wondered why, not for the first time. Isabelle used her beauty like she used her whip, but Clary didn't know she was beautiful at all. Maybe that was why.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Time

“It's true. It's like the hidden secret that no one tells you. we can all be beautiful girls, Colie. it's so easy. it's like Dorothy clicking her heels to go home. You could do it all along.”

Sarah Dessen book Keeping the Moon

Source: Keeping the Moon

Secret, Home, Girl

“His beauty did not blaze like Will's did in fierce colors and repressed fire, but it had its own muted perfection, the loveliness of snow falling against a silver gray sky.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Color, Perfection

“It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.”

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) Scottish physician and author

Source: Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories, Volume I

Smile

“the mind is its own beautiful prisoner.
Mind looked long at the sticky moon
opening in dusk her new wings

then decently hanged himself, one afternoon.

The last thing he saw was you
naked amid unnaked things…”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

“Doth perfect beauty stand in need of praise at all? Nay; no more than law, no more than truth, no more than loving kindness, nor than modesty.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

IV, 20
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book IV

Love, Truth, Law, Perfection

“Once lay down the rule that the job comes first and you throw that job open to every individual, man or woman, fat or thin, tall or short, ugly or beautiful, who is able to do that job better than the rest of the world.”

Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) English crime writer, playwright, essayist and Christian writer

Source: Are Women Human? Astute and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society

World

“The more we narrow the definition of beauty, the more beauty we shut out of our lives.”

Jim C. Hines (1974) American writer

Source: Codex Born

“Did you hear that Mitch? Your mom thinks you're beautiful.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Rescue

Source: The Rescue

Moms, Thinking

“I know how you are with your words, and, Will- I love all of them. Every word you say. The silly ones, the mad ones, the beautiful ones, and the ones that are only for me. I love them, and I love you." - Tessa Gray”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

Love, Madness

“Betrayal is beautiful.”

Jean Genet book The Thief's Journal

Source: The Thief's Journal

Betrayal

“The world is not beautiful. Therefore it is.”

Keiichi Sigsawa (1972) Japanese writer

Source: Kino no Tabi: The Beautiful World

World

“I ask people why they have deer heads on their walls. They always say because it's such a beautiful animal. There you go. I think my mother is attractive, but I have photographs of her.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

People, Thinking, Animals

“Exuberance is Beauty.”

William Blake book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Variant: Exuberance is Beauty.
Source: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790–1793), Proverbs of Hell, Line 64

“Look up, laugh loud, talk big, keep the colour in your cheek and the fire in your eye, adorn your person, maintain your health, your beauty, and your animal spirits, and you will pass for a fine man.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

"On The Conduct of Life" (1822)

Health, Animals, Personality

“Anything one does every day is important and imposing and anywhere one lives is interesting and beautiful.”

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays

“I saw something even more beautiful than a sense of humor: an appreciation for life’s essential absurdity.”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

Life, Sense

“To this generation I would say:
Memorize some bit of verse of truth or beauty.”

Edgar Lee Masters book Spoon River Anthology

Source: Spoon River Anthology

Truth

“Maybe if everyone walked around being in touch with each other's hidden pain it could work out and even be beautiful, but it doesn't feel safe to be the only compassionate person on the planet.”

Michelle Tea (1971) American writer

Source: Rose of No Man's Land

Pain, Feeling, Personality

“Just because you're beautiful and perfect, it's made you conceited.”

William Goldman book The Princess Bride

Source: The Princess Bride

Perfection

“Not that it was beautiful, but that I found some order there.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

Source: To Bedlam and Part Way Back

“You look beautiful and fuckable”

Sylvia Day book Bared to You

Source: Bared to You

“You don't have time, Len. That is the most bitter and the most beautiful piece of advice I can offer. If you don't have what you want now, you don't have what you want.”

Ann Brashares book Sisterhood Everlasting

Source: Sisterhood Everlasting

Time

“We don't go to the ocean for anything as simple as happiness, do we? We
go there to feel alive. Like life, the ocean holds chance and change, grief and terror and beauty. It promises mortality, not peace.”

Eileen Wilks Tempting Danger

Source: Tempting Danger

Life, Peace, Feeling, Change

“It was life, often unsatisfying, frequently cruel, usually boring, sometimes beautiful, once in a while exhilarating.”

Stephen King Insomnia

Source: Insomnia

Life

“I pop a beautiful sentence into my mouth and suck it like a fruit drop.”

Bohumil Hrabal (1914–1997) Czech bookwriter and writer

“She dropped her shyness like a nightgown, and in the liquid glare of sunlight on old boards she held up her hands-as if, in the terror of the upcoming skirmish, she had at last understood that she was beautiful. In her own way.”

Gregory Maguire book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Way

“I didn't know that the world could be so mind-blowingly beautiful.”

Justina Chen (1968) American writer

World

“Most of all the other beautiful things in life come by twos and threes, by dozens and hundreds. Plenty of roses, stars, sunsets, rainbows, brothers, and sisters, aunts and cousins, but only one mother in the whole world.”

Kate Douglas Wiggin (1856–1923) American writer

Life, World, Star, Sister

“People die… so love them every day.
Beauty fades… so look before it's gone.
Love changes… but not the love you give.
And if you love, you'll never be alone.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Witchlight

Love, People, Change

“I'm on such a dangerous road, Milena. You're standing firmly near a tree, young, beautiful, your eyes subduing with their radiance the suffering world.”

Franz Kafka book Letters to Milena

Source: Letters to Milena

World, Tree, Suffering

“They were beautiful nothings”

Charles Bukowski book Ham on Rye

Source: Ham on Rye

“Ugliness is an illusion, gentlemen. Like beauty. Like color. All depends on the light. The only reality is action.”

Karen Traviss book Star Wars Republic Commando: True Colors

Source: True Colors

Color, Reality, Light, Dependency

“Why are we designed to see the world as supremely beautiful just as we're about to be snuffed? Do rabbits feel the same as the fox teeth bite down on their necks? Is it mercy?”

Margaret Atwood book The Year of the Flood

Source: The Year of the Flood

World, Feeling

“Men didn't respect beauty… they used it.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Source: Montana Sky

Men

“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

Source: Odd Thomas

People, Imagination, Thinking, Perfection

“Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them”

David Hume (1711–1776) Scottish philosopher, economist, and historian

Beauty

“How goodness heightens beauty!”

Milan Kundera (1929–2023) Czech author of Czech and French literature

“Inching one's way along a steep cliff in the dark: on reaching the highway, one breathes a sigh of relief. Just when one can't take any more, one sees the moonlight. Beauty that seems to infuse itself into the heart: I know about that”

Banana Yoshimoto book Kitchen

Source: Kitchen

Way, Heart

“There are two occasions when the sacred beauty of Creation becomes dazzlingly apparent, and they occur together. One is when we feel our mortal insufficiency to the world, and the other is when we feel the world's mortal insufficiency to us.”

Marilynne Robinson Gilead

Source: Gilead

World, Feeling

“The true way to live is to enjoy every moment as it passes, and surely it is in the everyday things around us that the beauty of life lies.”

Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867–1957) American children's writer, diarist, and journalist

Source: Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farm Journalist: Writings from the Ozarks

Life, Way

“Sometimes it’s like people are a million times more beautiful to you in your mind. It’s like you see them through a special lens — but maybe if it’s how you see them, that’s how they really are. It’s like the whole tree falling in the forest thing.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: The Summer I Turned Pretty

People, Tree, Time

“I'll confess it is pleasant to look at you asleep. You're quite beautiful, Clarice.”

Thomas Harris book Hannibal

Source: Hannibal

“I’m so sleepy.”
“My beautiful girl, dawn nears. And all good vampires are to bed.”
She eased up, arching a brow at him. “Then you’ll stay awake.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Lothaire

Girl

“Luxury is not a necessity to me, but beautiful and good things are.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

“Magnus thought of James Herondale, burning up with too much light, too much love, too much, too much- while the boy in the portrait was as lovely as a dying poet, with the fragile beauty of a candle about to gutter out.”

Cassandra Clare The Bane Chronicles

Source: The Bane Chronicles

Love, Boy, Light

“The beauty myth is always actually prescribing behavior and not appearance.”

Naomi Wolf book The Beauty Myth

Source: Chapter 1 : 'The Beauty Myth', p. 14

Behavior, Appearance

“I know," he said, looking down at himself self-consciously. "I am not-I mean, I look-"
"Beautiful," she said, and she meant it. "You look beautiful, James Carstairs.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

“Well," I said finally, knowing he was waiting, "you make me laugh."
He nodded. "And?"
"You're pretty good-looking."
"Pretty good-looking? I called you beautiful."
"You want to be beautiful?" I asked him.
"Are you saying I'm not?”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

Waiting

“To think what is true, to sense what is beautiful and to want what is good, hereby the spirit finds purpose of a life in reason.”

Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic

Life, Thinking, Sense

“I might repeat to myself, slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound; if I can remember any of the damn things.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

"The Little Hours" in Here Lies (1939)
Source: Here Lies: The Collected Stories of Dorothy Parker

“He’s so beautiful,” she said wistfully. “He’s like an angel.”
“Yep,” I agreed flatly. “The one that fell.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Faefever

Angels

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Art, Science, Dead

“Every woman knows that, regardless of all her other achievements, she is a failure if she is not beautiful.”

Germaine Greer (1939) Australian feminist author

Source: The Whole Woman

Failure

“Stay beautiful, keep it ugly.”

Nikki Sixx (1958) American musician

“Youthfulness is not determined by age. It is determined by one's life force. One who possesses hope is forever young. One who continually advances is forever beautiful.”

Daisaku Ikeda (1928) Japanese writer

Life, Youth, Age, Hope

“I had to wonder if men were so blinded by beauty that they would feel privileged to live their lives with an actual demon, so long as it was a beautiful demon.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

Men, Feeling

“The most beautiful world is always entered through imagination.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

World, Imagination

“No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.”

Lin Yutang (1895–1976) Chinese writer

"A Trip to Anhwei", in With Love And Irony (1940), p. 145

Travel, Home

“She was fascinated with words. To her, words were things of beauty, each like a magical powder or potion that could be combined with other words to create powerful spells.”

Dean Koontz book Lightning

Source: Lightning

“Can officially confirm that the way to a man's heart these days is not through beauty, food, sex, or alluringness of character, but merely the ability to seem not very interested in him.”

Helen Fielding book Bridget Jones's Diary

Source: Bridget Jones's Diary

Food, Sex, Way, Heart

“We should be inspired by people… who show that human beings can be kind, brave, generous, beautiful, strong-even in the most difficult circumstances.”

Rachel Corrie (1979–2003) American anti-war and human rights activist

People, Strong

“Killing an animal to make a coat is sin. It wasn't meant to be, and we have no right to do it. A woman gains status when she refuses to see anything killed to be put on her back. Then she's truly beautiful.”

Doris Day (1922–2019) American actress, singer, and animal rights activist

Animals

“Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.”

David Hume book Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary

Part I, Essay 23: Of The Standard of Taste
Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary (1741-2; 1748)
Source: Of the Standard of Taste and Other Essays
Context: Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty. One person may even perceive deformity, where another is sensible of beauty; and every individual ought to acquiesce in his own sentiment, without pretending to regulate those of others.

Beauty