Quotes about beauty
page 19

“When people first discover beauty, they tend to linger. Even if they don’t at first recognize it for what it is.”

Sherwood Smith (1951) American fantasy and science fiction writer

“… a full moon shimmered over central Louisiana. This was no rinky-dink moon. This was a moon you had to curtsy to. A big, heavy, mysterious, beautiful, bossy moon. The kind you want to serve things to on a silver platter.”

Rebecca Wells book Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

Source: Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

“Life is like a beautiful melody, only the lyrics are messed up.”

Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet

Life

“I was completely astonished by the beauty of nature. Our eyes see just a small fraction of the light in the world. It is a trick to make a colored world, which does not exist outside of human beings.”

Albert Hofmann (1906–2008) Swiss chemist

World, Color, Nature, Light

“There is no surer foundation for a beautiful friendship than a mutual taste in literature.”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

Friendship, Literature

“She was a nice little girl, simple and true, and tremendously frightened of sex. I told her it was beautiful. I wanted to prove this to her. She let me prove it, but I was too impatient and proved nothing.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Source: On the Road

Sex, Girl

“His laughter echoed through my mind. I have a beautiful woman in my arms, and am taking her back to my home, where she and I will be alone and able to indulge whatever fantasies we choose. What is there not to enjoy?”

Katie MacAlister (1964) Author

Source: Sex and the Single Vampire

Home, Laughter

“khalepa ta kala, greek.
It means 'beauty is harsh'.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

“In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted. Only artistic excellence is incorruptible. Pleasure cannot be bargained down. And sometimes the meal is the only currency that is real.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Pleasure, World, Fraud

“A good listener is very nearly as attractive as a good talker. You cannot have a beautiful mind if you do not know how to listen.”

Edward de Bono (1933) Maltese physician

Source: How To Have A Beautiful Mind

“Your personality - the real you inside - was the price of beauty.”

Scott Westerfeld book Uglies

Source: Uglies

Personality

“My dear, beautiful and imaginative things can be destroyed. Beauty and imagination cannot.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

Source: Lost Girls, libro 3: Grande y terrible

Imagination

“Familiar acts are beautiful through love.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley Prometheus Unbound

The Earth, Act IV, l. 403
Prometheus Unbound (1818–1819; publ. 1820)

Beauty, love, Romantic, Love

“Do you know that every great thing in the history of art and every beautiful thing in life is actually what you call nasty or has been caused by feelings that you would call nasty? By passion, by love, by hatred, by truth. Do you know that?”

John Fowles book The Collector

Source: The Collector

Love, Life, Truth, Art

“Summer afternoon — summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.”

Henry James (1843–1916) American novelist, short story author, and literary critic

Quoted by Edith Wharton, A Backward Glance (1934), ch. 10.

Wise, Summer

“Potentiality knocks on the door of my heart. [On Seeing The 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning ]”

Haruki Murakami book The Elephant Vanishes

Source: The Elephant Vanishes

Girl, Heart, Perfection

“A hundred times I have thought: New York is a catastrophe, and fifty times: it is a beautiful catastrophe.”

Le Corbusier (1887–1965) architect, designer, urbanist, and writer

When the Cathedrals Were White http://books.google.com/books?id=TzwVAAAAMAAJ&q=&quot;A+hundred+times+I+have+thought+New+York+is+a+catastrophe+and+fifty+times+it+is+a+beautiful+catastrophe&quot;#search_anchor (1947) <br class="br">Attributed from posthumous publications

Time

“I am larger, better than I thought; I did not know I held so much goodness.

All seems beautiful to me.

Whoever denies me, it shall not trouble me;
Whoever accepts me, he or she shall be blessed, and shall bless me.”

Walt Whitman book Fulles d'herba

Source: Leaves of Grass

“This was not a fearie tale. This was not the movies. This was life. It hurt more. It was excruciating. It was excruciatingly beautiful.”

Francesca Lia Block (1962) American children's writer

Variant: This was not a faerie tale. This was not the movies. This was life. It hurt more. It was excruciating. It was excruciatingly beautiful.
Source: Violet & Claire

Life, Hurt

“There can be no beauty if it is paid for by human injustice, nor truth that passes over injustice in silence, nor moral virtue that condones it.”

Tadeusz Borowski book This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen

Source: This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen

Truth, Silence

“I think a woman is born with the desire to hear she is beautiful.”

Ted Dekker (1962) American writer

Source: Blink of an Eye

Thinking

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Source: Endymion: A Poetic Romance

Joy

“Nothing in the real world is as beautiful as the illusions of a person about to lose consciousness.”

Haruki Murakami book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Source: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

World, Personality

“… this beginning motion, this first time when a sail truly filled and the boat took life and knifed across the lake under perfect control, this was so beautiful it stopped my breath…”

Gary Paulsen (1939) American writer and musher

Source: Caught by the Sea

Life, Time, Perfection

“To look almost pretty is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain for the first fifteen years of her life than a beauty from her cradle can ever receive.”

Jane Austen book Northanger Abbey

Source: Northanger Abbey (1817)

Life, Girl

“His smile was like lightning in the darkness, blinding and beautiful and mysterious, and I wanted him so badly it was physically painful.”

Sylvia Day book Bared to You

Source: Bared to You

Pain, Smile

“Princess,” he whispered against her ear. “My beautiful, beautiful princess. I want to spoil you. Pamper you. Indulge you.”

Teresa Medeiros (1962) American writer

Source: A Whisper of Roses

Princess

“Do you know how an ugly woman feels? Do you know what it is to be ugly all your life and inside to feel that you are beautiful? It is very rare.”

Ernest Hemingway book For Whom the Bell Tolls

Source: For Whom the Bell Tolls

Life, Feeling

“Wouldn't it be strange, she thought, to have a blue sky? But she liked the way it looked. It would be beautiful - a blue sky.”

Jeanne DuPrau The City of Ember

Source: The City of Ember

Way

“If I can't be beautiful, I want to be invisible.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

Source: Invisible Monsters

“It has taken me years of struggle, hard work, and research to learn to make one simple gesture, and I know enough about the art of writing to realize that it would take as many years of concentrated effort to write one simple, beautiful sentence.”

Isadora Duncan (1877–1927) American dancer and choreographer

Art, Effort, Learning

“I watch the beauty for as long as I can, then turn and face the rest of it.”

Markus Zusak (1975) Australian author

Source: I Am the Messenger

“She was tired of everyone wanting to go to heaven, nobody wanting to die. The only thing worth grieving over, she said, was that sometimes there was more beauty in this life than the world could bear.”

Colum McCann book Let the Great World Spin

Source: Let the Great World Spin

Life, World

“Ah, come now. I look like an angel, but I'm not. The old rules of nature encompass many creatures like me. We're beautiful like the diamond-backed snake, or the striped tiger, yet we're merciless killers”

Anne Rice book Interview with the Vampire

Source: Interview with the Vampire

Angels, Nature

“Told her she was beautiful. Didn't give up when she didn't believe me.”

David Levithan The Realm of Possibility

Source: The Realm of Possibility

“There are beautiful sounds in rock. Very lazy, dreamlike noises. You can forget about the lyrics in most songs. Just dig the noise, and you've got your sound… We're musical primitives.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

Music, Forgetting

“I love his dear eyes in which the vulnerability and beauty of his soul can be plainly read.”

Alice Walker book The Color Purple

Source: The Color Purple

Love, Soul, Reading

“I think beauty comes from actually knowing who you are. That's real beauty to me.”

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

Thinking

“To serve is beautiful, but only if it is done with joy and a whole heart and a free mind.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

Heart, Joy

“Beautiful as a dandelion-blossom, golden in the green grass,
This life can be.
Common as a dandelion-blossom, beautiful in the clean grass, not beautiful
Because common, beautiful because beautiful,
Noble because common, because free.”

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American poet

Source: Conversation At Midnight

Life, Grass

“When we rejoice in beautiful scenery, great art, and great music, it is but the flexing of instincts acquired in another place and another time.”

Neal A. Maxwell (1926–2004) Mormon leader

Art, Music, Time

“And they would all smile at the beauty of destruction.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Smile

“Beautiful thoughts, and beautiful women never last.”

Charles Bukowski book Notes of a Dirty Old Man

Source: Notes of a Dirty Old Man

Women

“Disappear Here.
The syringe fills with blood.
You're a beautiful boy and that's all that matters.
Wonder if he's for sale.
People are afraid to merge. To merge.”

Bret Easton Ellis book Less Than Zero

Source: Less Than Zero

People, Boy

“That the world was silent and cold and bare and that in this lay its terrible beauty”

David Guterson book Snow Falling on Cedars

Source: Snow Falling on Cedars

World

“Beauty is rarely soft or consolatory. Quite the contrary. Genuine beauty is always quite alarming.”

Donna Tartt book The Secret History

Source: The Secret History

“Beautiful girls should know how to defend themselves against the advances of gentlemen.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Girl

“She was smart and funny and vulnerable and just so goddamned beautiful, the kind of beautiful that was worth being shot down over.”

Jonathan Tropper (1970) American writer

Source: How to Talk to a Widower

“One person sees the beautiful view and the other sees the dirty window”

Andrew Matthews (1948) British writer

Source: Being Happy!

Personality

“You have to find what’s good and true and beautiful in your life as it is now. Looking back makes you competitive. And, age is not a competitive issue.”

Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie

Source: Tuesdays with Morrie

Life, Age

“Women? Women are like… thunderstorms. They're beautiful to look at, and sometimes they're nice to listen to-but most of the time they're just plain inconvenient.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Final Empire

Women, Time

“-"He loved her… It was noble of him. It was beautiful."

-"It was stupid.”

Lloyd Alexander book Westmark

Source: Westmark

Love, Stupidity

“To forgive is the highest, most beautiful form of love. In return, you will receive untold peace and happiness”

Robert Muller (1923–2010) Civil servant with the United Nations

Peaceful, Love, Peace, Forgiveness

“Help me to withstand your beauty as it stands out of reach. Give me the capacity to forget ever having felt your touch.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Source: Solipsist

Help, Forgetting

“Having eyes, but not seeing beauty; having ears, but not hearing music; having minds, but not perceiving truth…These are the things to fear…”

Tetsuko Kuroyanagi (1933) Japanese actress

Truth, Fear, Music

“Wittgenstein once wrote that when the eye sees something beautiful, the hand wants to draw it. I wish I could draw you.”

Nicole Krauss The History of Love

Source: The History of Love

Drawing

“That's what I love about fire, how it would kill me as quick as anybody else. How it can't know I'm its mother. It's so beautiful and powerful and beyond feeling anything for anybody, that's what I love about fire.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

Source: Invisible Monsters

Love, Feeling

“It is our destiny to be born beautiful into an ugly age.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Source: Solipsist

Age

“Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance.”

John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic

Also misattributed to John Steinbeck.
Source: The Works of John Ruskin: The stones of Venice, v. 1-3

World

“He nodded. "And if I don't make you feel like the most beautiful woman in the world every day of your life, then I don't deserve to be near you.”

Shannon Hale book Austenland

Source: Austenland

Life, World, Feeling

“What we seek, at the deepest level, is inwardly to resemble, rather than physically to possess, the objects and places that touch us through their beauty.”

Alain de Botton book The Architecture of Happiness

Source: The Architecture of Happiness

“Beauty is a question of optics. All sight is illusion.”

Joyce Carol Oates Blonde

Source: Blonde

Question

“In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

World, Fraud

“We may speak about a place where there are no tears, no death, no fear, no night; but those are just the benefits of heaven. The beauty of heaven is seeing God.”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

Source: Experiencing the Heart of Jesus: Knowing His Heart, Feeling His Love

Death, God, Fear, Tear

“Beauty fades, but cooking is eternal.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

Cooking

“Whatever it is that pulls the pin, that hurls you past the boundaries of your own life into a brief and total beauty, even for a moment, it is enough”

Jeanette Winterson book Gut Symmetries

Gut Symmetries (1997)
Context: They were letting off fireworks down at the waterfront, the sky exploding in grenades of colour. Whatever it is that pulls the pin, that hurls you past the boundaries of your own life into a brief and total beauty - even for a moment - it is enough.

Life, Past

“That's the beauty of argument, if you argue correctly, you're never wrong.”

Christopher Buckley (1952) American writer

“Remember that the most beautiful things in life are often the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance.”

John Ruskin book The Stones of Venice

Volume I, chapter II, section 17.
The Stones of Venice (1853)
Variant: Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless.
Context: You were made for enjoyment, and the world was filled with things which you will enjoy, unless you are too proud to be pleased with them, or too grasping to care for what you cannot turn to other account than mere delight. Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless: peacocks and lilies, for instance.

Life