Quotes about beauty
page 21
“Nothing can happen more beautiful than death.”
Starting from Paumanok. 12
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“… a man's plans are meant to be changed for a beautiful woman.”
Source: Genuine Lies
“Beautiful I would never be. Striking, that I could manage.”
Source: Magic Bites
Source: The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever
Source: The Beautiful and Damned
“You are you. Unique. Marvelous. Beautiful. Quirky. And imperfect.”
Free to Be Me: Becoming the Young Woman God Created You to Be
“I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want.”
“I always find beauty in things that are odd & imperfect - they are much more interesting.”
“Only in books has mankind known perfect truth, love and beauty.”
Attributed to Monroe in self-help books and on social media, this quotation is of unknown origin and date.
Misattributed
Source: Seriously... I'm Kidding
“Her beauty belonged to all the world but her flaws belonged to him alone.”
“I can't help feeling that there is no beauty without hope, struggle, and conquest.”
Source: My Last Sigh
Source: The English Patient
Variant translations: The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. It was the experience of mystery — even if mixed with fear — that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms — it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.
The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the germ of all art and all true science. Anyone to whom this feeling is alien, who is no longer capable of wonderment and lives in a state of fear is a dead man. To know that what is impenetrable for us really exists and manifests itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, whose gross forms alone are intelligible to our poor faculties — this knowledge, this feeling … that is the core of the true religious sentiment. In this sense, and in this sense alone, I rank myself among profoundly religious men.
As quoted in After Einstein : Proceedings of the Einstein Centennial Celebration (1981) by Peter Barker and Cecil G. Shugart, p. 179
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and 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.
As quoted in Introduction to Philosophy (1935) by George Thomas White Patrick and Frank Miller Chapman, p. 44
The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I am a devoutly religious man."
He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.
1930s, Mein Weltbild (My World-view) (1931)
Context: The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery — even if mixed with fear — that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man.
Christopher Hitchens vs. William Dembski, 18/11/2010 ( closing remarks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwgYYxfpPC0)
2010s, 2010
Context: When Socrates was sentenced to death, for his philosophical investigations and his blasphemy for challenging the Gods of the city and he accepted his death. He did say "well, if we're lucky perhaps I'll be able to hold a conversation with other great thinkers and philosophers and doubters too", in other words that the discussion about what is good, what is beautiful, what is noble and what is pure and what is true can always go on. Why is that important, why would I like to do that? Because that is the only conversation worth having. And whether it goes on or not after I die, I don't know, but I do know that it is the conversation I want to have while I am still alive. Which means that for me, the offer of certainty, the offer of complete security, the offer of an impermeable faith that can't give way, is an offer of something not worth having. I want to live my life taking the risk all the time that I don't know anything like enough yet. That I haven't understood enough, that I can't know enough, that I'm always hungrily operating on the margins of a potentially great harvest of future knowledge and wisdom. I wouldn't have it any other way. And I urge you to look at those of you that tell you (at your age) that that you are dead until you believe as they do. (What a terrible thing to be telling to children.) And that you can only live by accepting an absolute authority. Don't think of that as a gift, think of it as a poison chalice. Push it aside no matter how tempting it is. Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty and wisdom will come to you that way.
Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XVI : The Warning of Experience; Mrs. Maxwell to Helen
Context: Beauty is that quality which, next to money, is generally the most attractive to the worst kinds of men; and, therefore, it is likely to entail a great deal of trouble on the possessor.
“You must do something to make the world more beautiful - Ms. Rumphius”
“Whiskey, like a beautiful woman, demands appreciation. You gaze first, then it's time to drink.”
Source: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Source: Memoirs of a Geisha
“Each thing in its way, when true to its own character, is equally beautiful.”
"Cliffrose and Bayonets", p. 37
Source: Desert Solitaire (1968)
“Each book can make a life or a fragment of it more beautiful.”
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know”
Source: The Complete Poems
The Sense of Wonder (1965)
Context: Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life. Whatever the vexations or concerns of their personal lives, their thoughts can find paths that lead to inner contentment and to renewed excitement in living. Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.
Ch 13 The Quaker Settlement
Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852)
“When you can see the beauty of a tree, then you will know what love is.”
Source: No One Belongs Here More Than You
Source: Animals Matter: A Biologist Explains Why We Should Treat Animals with Compassion and Respect
“It was like I saw your soul in the notes of the music. And it was beautiful.”
Source: The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Princess
Source: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption
“When he died, all things soft and beautiful and bright would be buried with him.”
Source: The Song of Achilles
“Graffiti is beautiful; like a brick in the face of a cop.”
“We wake, if we ever wake at all, to mystery, rumors of death, beauty, violence…”
Source: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Source: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
“Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art.”
“Nobody said it was a beautiful world with no scars.”
Source: Becoming Chloe
“As we grow old… the beauty steals inward.”
“I don't take good pictures 'cause I have the kind of beauty that moves.”
“An artist's concern is to capture beauty wherever he finds it.”
Source: An Artist of the Floating World
Source: The Vampire Armand
Source: I Will Fear No Evil (1970), Chapter 2, p. 35
Source: Auguste Rodin: The Man, His Ideas, His Works, 1905, p. 2-3
To the ancients the hearth was sacred; beside the hearth they erected their lares and household-gods. Let us also hold the hearth sacred, where the conscientious German housewife slowly sacrifices her life, to keep the home comfortable, the table well supplied, and the family healthy."
"von Gerhardt, using the pen-name Gerhard von Amyntor in", A Commentary to the Book of Life. Quote taken from August Bebel, Woman and Socialism, Chapter X. Marriage as a Means of Support.
Vol. 1, p. 77; "Sensus Communis".
Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1711)
“A woman's exterior beauty is a reflection of her internal peace and happiness.”
www.beautyblabber.com (July 31, 2007)
2007, 2008
"Mathematical Games", in Scientific American (October 1973); also quoted in Roger B. Nelson, Proofs Without Words: Exercises in Visual Thinking (1993), "Introduction", p. v
version in original Dutch (origineel citaat van Hendrik Werkman, in het Nederlands): Zondag maakten we een fietstocht van 80 km. Door het Noorden langs de rand van de provincie [Groningen].. .Op zoo’n dag doe ik weer heel wat indrukken op die te gelegener tijd omgewerkt weer tevoorschijn komen. Mooie landschappen, aardige weggetjes, prachtige boerderijen, weiden met paarden en vee, vogels, water en zonneschijn volop. Molens en torens en boomen breken de lijnen van het vlakke land..
In a letter to Henkels, 12 July 1944; as cited in H. N. Werkman - Leven & Werk - 1882-1945, ed. A. de Vries, J. van der Spek, D. Sijens, M. Jansen; WBooks, Groninger Museum / Stichting Werkman, 2015 (transl: Fons Heijnsbroek), p. 18
1940's
As written at on his blog http://wearethebest.wordpress.com/ts-satyan/.
John Wain "Ambiguous Gifts", in The Penguin New Writing no. 40 (1950); cited from John Lehmann and Roy Fuller (eds.) The Penguin New Writing 1940-1950: An Anthology (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985) p. 492.
Criticism