Quotes about beauty
page 48

“The Taste of Beauty, and the Relish of what is decent, just, and amiable, perfects the Character of the Gentleman, and the Philosopher. And the Study of such a Taste or Relish will, as we suppose, be ever the great Employment and Concern of him, who covets as well to be wise and good, as agreeable and polite.”

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

Vol. 2, p. 207; "Miscellany III".
Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1711)

Study, Perfection

“Have you ever seen a picture
Of Jesus laughing?
Mmm, do you think
He had a beautiful smile?
A smile that healed.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, The Red Shoes (1993)

Smile, Thinking

“The leaves in autumn do not change color from the blighting touch of frost, but from the process of natural decay. They fall when the fruit is ripened, and their work is done. And their splendid coloring is but their graceful and beautiful surrender of life when they have finished their summer offering of service to God and man. And one of the great lessons the fall of the leaf teaches is this : Do your work well, and then be ready to depart when God shall call.”

Tryon Edwards (1809–1894) American theologian

Source: A Dictionary of Thoughts, 1891, p. 33.

Life, God, Color, Autumn

“Through violence, you may 'solve' one problem, but you sow the seeds for another.
…
One has to try to develop one's inner feelings, which can be done simply by training one's mind. This is a priceless human asset and one you don't have to pay income tax on!
…
First one must change. I first watch myself, check myself, then expect changes from others.
…
Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.
…
I myself feel, and also tell other Buddhists that the question of Nirvana will come later.
There is not much hurry.
If in day to day life you lead a good life, honesty, with love,
with compassion, with less selfishness,
then automatically it will lead to Nirvana.
…
The universe that we inhabit and our shared perception of it are the results of a common karma. Likewise, the places that we will experience in future rebirths will be the outcome of the karma that we share with the other beings living there. The actions of each of us, human or nonhuman, have contributed to the world in which we live. We all have a common responsibility for our world and are connected with everything in it.
…
If the love within your mind is lost and you see other beings as enemies, then no matter how much knowledge or education or material comfort you have, only suffering and confusion will ensue.
…
It is under the greatest adversity that there exists the greatest potential for doing good, both for oneself and others.
…
Whenever Buddhism has taken root in a new land, there has been a certain variation in the style in which it is observed. The Buddha himself taught differently according to the place, the occasion and the situation of those who were listening to him.
…
Samsara - our conditioned existence in the perpetual cycle of habitual tendencies and nirvana - genuine freedom from such an existence- are nothing but different manifestations of a basic continuum. So this continuity of consciousness us always present. This is the meaning of tantra.
…
According to Buddhist practice, there are three stages or steps. The initial stage is to reduce attachment towards life.
The second stage is the elimination of desire and attachment to this samsara. Then in the third stage, self-cherishing is eliminated.
…
The creatures that inhabit this earth-be they human beings or animals-are here to contribute, each in its own particular way, to the beauty and prosperity of the world.
…
To develop genuine devotion, you must know the meaning of teachings. The main emphasis in Buddhism is to transform the mind, and this transformation depends upon meditation. in order to meditate correctly, you must have knowledge.
…
Anything that contradicts experience and logic should be abandoned.
…
The ultimate authority must always rest with the individual's own reason and critical analysis.
…
From one point of view we can say that we have human bodies and are practicing the Buddha's teachings and are thus much better than insects. But we can also say that insects are innocent and free from guile, where as we often lie and misrepresent ourselves in devious ways in order to achieve our ends or better ourselves. From this perspective, we are much worse than insects.
…
When the days become longer and there is more sunshine, the grass becomes fresh and, consequently, we feel very happy. On the other hand, in autumn, one leaf falls down and another leaf falls down. The beautiful plants become as if dead and we do not feel very happy. Why? I think it is because deep down our human nature likes construction, and does not like destruction. Naturally, every action which is destructive is against human nature. Constructiveness is the human way. Therefore, I think that in terms of basic human feeling, violence is not good. Non-violence is the only way.
…
We humans have existed in our present form for about a hundred thousand years. I believe that if during this time the human mind had been primarily controlled by anger and hatred, our overall population would have decreased. But today, despite all our wars, we find that the human population is greater than ever. This clearly indicates to me that love and compassion predominate in the world. And this is why unpleasant events are "news"; compassionate activities are so much a part of daily life that they are taken for granted and, therefore, largely ignored.
…
The fundamental philosophical principle of Buddhism is that all our suffering comes about as a result of an undisciplined mind, and this untamed mind itself comes about because of ignorance and negative emotions. For the Buddhist practitioner then, regardless of whether he or she follows the approach of the Fundamental Vehicle, Mahayana or Vajrayana, negative emotions are always the true enemy, a factor that has to be overcome and eliminated. And it is only by applying methods for training the mind that these negative emotions can be dispelled and eliminated. This is why in Buddhist writings and teachings we find such an extensive explanation of the mind and its different processes and functions. Since these negative emotions are states of mind, the method or technique for overcoming them must be developed from within. There is no alternative. They cannot be removed by some external technique, like a surgical operation."”

Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet

Dzogchen: The Heart Essence of the Great Perfection, Snow Lion Publications, Ithaca, 2004

Love, Life, War, Lie

“Yes, they are beautiful… The shirt, the blouse are garments the folds of which yield simple planes and effects that, rightly rendered, are those of true sculpture. But there is something better still, and that is sackcloth. If I had clothed my 'Burghers of Calais' in sackcloth, they would certainly be more beautiful. I did not dare to. Some one else will do this and will succeed. It is sufficient to express an idea and leave it to its destiny.”

Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) French sculptor

Source: Rodin : the man and his art, with leaves from his notebook, 1917, p. 295-296; About the sculpture The Burghers of Calais

Idea, Clothes

“I went to the Rayburn Building the other day on trifling business. It was an appalling experience. I had forgotten how preposterous the thing is with its pretentious megatonnage of rock and steel spreading acre after acre down the slope of Capitol Hill in sullen defiance to eternity and man.
It dwarfs the forum of the Caesars. Mussolini would have wept in envy.
Inside, one is compelled to dwell upon the insignificance of humanity. Not a single tiny wisp of beauty, nothing that is graceful, or charming, or eccentric, or human presents itself to the senses. Trying to imagine Clay and Webster in this celebration to the death of the spirit, erected to the glory that was Congress, is an exercise in comic despair.
What do we have? Banks of stainless-steel elevators. Miracles of plumbing. Corridors of cemetery marble stretching to far horizons under the most artificial light millions of dollars can create, a light that abides no shadow, grants no privacy, tolerates nothing that is interesting in the slightest degree.
Occasionally a small figure appeared in the distance, grew larger, then larger, then assumed human proportion, then passed and became smaller, and smaller, and smaller. Two ants had passed in a pyramid.”

Russell Baker (1925–2019) writer and satirst from the United States

"Moods of Washington" (p.36)
So This Is Depravity (1980)

Death, Exercises, Imagination, Business

“For Genet, Beauty will be the offensive weapon that will enable him to beat the just on their own ground: that of value.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Saint Genet

405
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)

“Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

A Defence of Poetry http://www.bartleby.com/27/23.html (1821)

World

“The breaking of casting cliches also broke boundaries. A short, Latin-looking actress like me playing classical roles such as Miss Julie, and playing them well, made casting directors uncomfortable. It was unheard of that a short, dark-haired actress of Greek temperament could play the aristocratic Miss Julie. Not beautiful or tall enough etc. It proved one of the best productions of Miss Julie ever seen in London.”

Angelique Rockas South African actress and founder of Internationalist Theatre, London

On the formation of Internationalist Theatre.
The South African Interview (August 8, 2011)

“Gold gives an appearance of beauty even to ugliness:
But with poverty everything becomes frightful.”

Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (1636–1711) French poet and critic

L'or même à la laideur donne un teint de beauté :
Mais tout devient affreux avec la pauvreté.
Satire 8, l. 209
Satires (1716)

Appearance

“Marcia: I appreciated the simplicity and when you just stand there and people hear your voice it's beautiful.”

Hayley Jensen (1983) Australian singer

Australian Idol, Final Performances, Final 4

People

“When Marinetti founded Futurism in 1909, he called for ‘incendiary violence’ that might drive Italy and Italians out of the ‘fetid somnolence’ of dolce far niente. He incited Futurists and their allies to the destruction of museums, monuments, and universities—to decimate everything that ‘stank of the past’… All of this was suffused with aggression and violence, with an appeal to slaps and blows, to culminate in an invocation to what he called the ‘beauty of battle,’ and the ‘hygiene of war.”

A. James Gregor (1929–2019) American political scientist

Source: Mussolini’s Intellectuals: Fascist Social and Political Thought (2005), pp. 250-51

War, Universe, Past, Future

“Beauty … is a relation, and the apprehension of it a comparison.”

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889) English poet

"On the Origin of Beauty: A Platonic Dialogue"
Letters, etc

“Who said anything about it hurting?
It's gonna be beautiful
It's gonna be wonderful
It's gonna be paradise.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, The Red Shoes (1993)

Hurt

“There was a beauty here, refined from country pastures, a game of solitariness, of waiting, waiting for the pitcher to complete his gaze toward first base and throw his lightning, a game whose very taste, of spit and dust and grass and sweat and leather and sun, was America.”

John Updike book Rabbit Redux

Rabbit Redux (1969)

Game, Grass, Waiting, Sun

“Oh how beautiful to fall to give you flight,
To die to give you life, to rest under your sky;
And in your enchanted land forever sleep.”

José Rizal (1861–1896) Filipino writer, ophthalmologist, polyglot and nationalist

"Mi Ultimo Adios", st. 5

Life, Sleep

“Be yourself by growing above yourself. Don’t stand in your own way. Let us change with, and not against, movement. Then we shall be static and shall not decompose. Then there will be neither good nor evil, neither beauty nor unsightliness, neither truth nor falsehood. Conceptions are fixations. If we stand still, we block our own path, and we are confronted with our own controversies.”

Jean Tinguely (1925–1991) Swiss painter and sculptor

reprinted in 'Zero', ed. Otto Piene and Heinz Mack, Cambridge, Mass; MIT Press 1973, p. 119
Quotes, 1960's, untitled statements in 'Zero 3', (1961)

Truth, Way, Evil, Change

“Lucifer was in Eden as a nice guy, probably for quite a while. Ezekiel tells us that Satan got proud; he was lifted up. He said, "I am a god." He was lifted up because of his wisdom, because of his riches, because of his beauty, and because of his power. The four things that still corrupt people today: wisdom, riches, beauty, and power.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), The Garden of Eden

Wisdom, God, People, Guy

“I get so much mail from young girls who say, 'I look up to you, you're not as skinny as everyone else, I think you're beautiful' … So when they say that my body is 'ugly' and 'disgusting,' what does that make those girls feel like?”

Tyra Banks (1973) American model, author and television personality

"Cover Story: Tyra Banks Speaks Out About Her Weight" http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20009611,00.html (January 24, 2007) People Magazine, Time Inc.

Feeling, Girl, Thinking

“According to the theologians, God, the Father of us all, wrote a letter to his children. The children have always differed somewhat as to the meaning of this letter. In consequence of these honest differences, these brothers began to cut out each other's hearts. In every land, where this letter from God has been read, the children to whom and for whom it was written have been filled with hatred and malice. They have imprisoned and murdered each other, and the wives and children of each other. In the name of God every possible crime has been committed, every conceivable outrage has been perpetrated. Brave men, tender and loving women, beautiful girls, and prattling babes have been exterminated in the name of Jesus Christ.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Heretics and Heresies (1874)

Love, Women, Men, God

“Instead of playing his part as truly and honestly as he could, the German intellectual has constantly rebelled against the word and against reason and courted wonderful creations of sound, and wonderful beauties of feeling and mood that were never pressed home to reality, has left the greater part of its practical gifts to decay. None of us intellectuals is at home in reality. We are strange to it and hostile. That is why the part played by intellect even in our own German reality, in our history and politics and public opinion, has be so lamentable a one.”

Hermann Hesse book Steppenwolf

Steppenwolf (1927)

Hostility, Feeling, Home, History

“Alas that the artist… may not content himself with the inward enjoyment of the beautiful, but must chase the fitting mystery beyond the verge of his ethereal domain, and crush its frail being in seizing it with a material grasp. Owen Warland felt the impulse to give external reality to his ideas as irresistibly as any of the poets or painters who have arrayed the world in a dimmer and fainter beauty, imperfectly copied from the richness of their visions.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) American novelist and short story writer (1804 – 1879)

"The Artist of the Beautiful" (1844)

World, Idea, Reality

“I was not able to work in the several excursions and ascensions made in the neighborhood, where it was very beautiful. One is so surprised by these grand aspects that it would be necessary to remain a long time before finding the interpretation capable of rendering them. I am going to finish the season at Auvers. There is nothing like one's natural every-day surroundings where one really takes pleasure. The pictures we do then feel the effect of their home-life, and the sweet sensations we experience in it.”

Charles-François Daubigny (1817–1878) French painter

Quote in Daubigny's letter to his friend Frédéric Henriet, 1872; as cited in 'Charles-francois Daubigny', by Robert J. Wichenden, in The Century Illustrated Montly Magazine, Vol. XLIV, July 1892, p. 337
1860s - 1870s

Life, Pleasure, Feeling, Home

“If there is no freedom of expression, then the beauty of life is lost. Participation in a society is not an artistic choice, it’s a human need.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

Solway, Diane. “Enforced Disappearance.” W Magazine, November 2011.
2010-, 2011

Life, Freedom

“Old hands soil, it seems, whatever they caress, but they too have their beauty when they are joined in prayer. Young hands were made for caresses and the sheathing of love. It is a pity to make them join too soon.”

André Gide (1869–1951) French novelist and essayist

Entry for January 21, 1929
Journals 1889-1949

Love

“And yet, it was not, not now, she that really counted. Or if she counted (and, oh, gloriously she did) it was for another’s sake. The earth and stars and sun, all that was or will be, existed for his sake. And he was coming. The most dreadful, the most beautiful, the only dread and beauty there is, was coming. The pillars on the far side of the pool flushed with his approach. I cast down my eyes.”

Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) Christian apologist, novelist, and Medievalist

Orual
Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold (1956)

Star, Sun

“This life that has been given to us as a gift, as such a precious gift. To really try to understand it, really try to recognize it, is to me the greatest meditation. Through the media of this Knowledge we can tap into our inner sources that are so beautiful.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Denver, Colorado, February 19, 1977
1970s

Life, Understanding, Knowledge

“When God’s power shines through us, it manifests as truth, auspiciousness and beauty. When God manifests through the intellect, truth shines forth. When God manifests through actions, it does so as goodness and auspiciousness. And when God manifests through the heart, beauty is the result. When truth, auspiciousness and beauty blend in our life, true strength awakens.”

Mata Amritanandamayi (1953) Hindu spiritual leader and guru

Cultivating Strength & Vitality (2009)

Life, God, Truth, Heart

“These experiences are not 'religious' in the ordinary sense. They are natural, and can be studied naturally. They are not 'ineffable' in the sense the sense of incommunicable by language. Maslow also came to believe that they are far commoner than one might expect, that many people tend to suppress them, to ignore them, and certain people seem actually afraid of them, as if they were somehow feminine, illogical, dangerous. 'One sees such attitudes more often in engineers, in mathematicians, in analytic philosophers, in book keepers and accountants, and generally in obsessional people'. The peak experience tends to be a kind of bubbling-over of delight, a moment of pure happiness. 'For instance, a young mother scurrying around her kitchen and getting breakfast for her husband and young children. The sun was streaming in, the children clean and nicely dressed, were chattering as they ate. The husband was casually playing with the children: but as she looked at them she was suddenly so overwhelmed with their beauty and her great love for them, and her feeling of good fortune, that she went into a peak experience…”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: New Pathways In Psychology: Maslow and the Post-Freudian Revolution (1972), p. 17

Love, Children, People, Books

“No matter how complete the despair, no matter how bitter the cynicism, a possibility beckons of a world more beautiful and a life more magnificent than what we know today. Though we may rationalize it, it is not rational. We become aware of it in moments, gaps in the rush and press of modern life. These moments come to us alone in nature, or with a baby, making love, playing with children, caring for a dying person, making music for the sake of music or beauty for the sake of beauty. At such times, a simple and easy joy shows us the futility of the vast, life-consuming program of management and control.”

Charles Eisenstein (1967) American writer

The Ascent of Humanity (2007)

Love, Life, Children, World

“Go bow thy head in gentle spite,
Thou lily white,
For she who spies thee waving here,
With thee in beauty can compare
As day with night.”

James Matthews Legaré (1823–1859) American writer

To a Lily, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Night

“Most American cities shop to their best advantage when seen from a height or from a distance, at a point where the ugliness of the buildings dissolves into the beauty of an abstraction.”

Lewis H. Lapham (1935) American journalist

Source: Money And Class In America (1989), Chapter 3, The Golden Horde, p. 58

“When I was doing a book tour in Japan for Why Men Are The Way They Are, I was told of an institution called the snack. The snack works like this: A man is coming home from work, and has had a bad day. He doesn’t feel that his wife wants to hear about it, so he pays between $50 and $80 for a snack —a sandwich and a drink and an attractive woman who will listen empathetically to him—sort of a beautiful psychologist with refreshments. No men need apply.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 198.

Men, Books, Way, Feeling

“For beauty with sorrow
Is a burden hard to be borne:
The evening light on the foam, and the swans, there;
That music, remote, forlorn.”

Walter de la Mare (1873–1956) English poet and fiction writer

The Old Summerhouse.

Music, Light

“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

Charles Darwin book On the Origin of Species (1859)

Source: On the Origin of Species (1859), chapter XIV: "Recapitulation and Conclusion", page 490 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=508&itemID=F373&viewtype=image Close of the first edition (1859). Only use of the term "evolve" or "evolution" in the first edition. In the second http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=508&itemID=F376&viewtype=image (1860) through sixth (1872) editions, Darwin added the phrase "by the Creator" to read:

Life, Law

“Nature is ever at work building and pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

Source: 1900s, Our National Parks (1901), chapter 3: The Yosemite National Park

Nature

“The sweetest teaching did he introduce,
Concealing truth under untrue speech.
The place he spoke of as the gods' abode
Was that by which he might awe humans most, —
The place from which, he knew, terrors came to mortals
And things advantageous in their wearisome life —
The revolving heaven above, in which dwell
The lightnings, and awesome claps
Of thunder, and the starry face of heaven,
Beautiful and intricate by that wise craftsman Time, —
From which, too, the meteor's glowing mass speeds
And wet thunderstorm pours forth upon the earth.”

Euripidés (-480–-406 BC) ancient Athenian playwright

Sisyphus as translated by R. G. Bury, and revised by J. Garrett

Life, God, Truth, Time

“As the visit of one we love makes the whole day pleasant, so is it illumined and made fair by a brave and beautiful thought.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 21

Love

“My figures at least are not a bunch of clothes with a head and hands sticking out but more nearly resemble the strong living bodies that most pictures show. And in the latter end of a life so spent in study, you at least can imagine that painting is with me a very serious study. That I have but little patience with the false modesty which is the greatest enemy to all figure painting. I see no impropriety in looking at the most beautiful of Nature's works, the naked figure. If there is impropriety, then just where does such impropriety begin? Is it wrong to look at a picture of a naked figure or at a statue? English ladies of the last generation thought so and avoided the statue galleries, but do so no longer. Or is it a question of sex? Should men make only the statues of men to be looked at by men, while the statues of women should be made by women to be looked at by women only? Should the he-painters draw the horses and bulls, and the she-painters like Rosa Bonheur the mares and cows? Must the poor old male body in the dissecting room be mutilated before Miss Prudery can dabble in his guts?Such indignities anger me. Can not anyone see into what contemptible inconsistencies such follies all lead? And how dangerous they are? My conscience is clear, and my suffering is past.”

Thomas Eakins (1844–1916) American painter

Letter of resignation to Edward Hornor Coates, Chairman of the Committee on Instruction, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1886-02-15).

Life, Women, Men, Sex

“It's for you, not for me. You don't do anything for me. You do meditation, you do it for yourself. You get helped by that. There is no pay, nothing I am getting out of it. It's for you. If it's your privilege, if it's your convenience, you do it. It's for you, not for me. Go ahead, do meditation and you will see and you'll really, really observe how beautiful this Knowledge is.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

San Francisco, California, July 1, 1972:
1970s

Knowledge, Help

“"I wonder if you can understand the 'fun' of making a beautiful thing, the pride and satisfaction of it, and the holiness!" The company glanced doubtfully at one another. In Gopher Prairie it is not good form to be holy except at church, between ten-thirty and twelve on Sunday.”

Sinclair Lewis book Main Street

Main Street (1920)

Understanding

“Here and in the hereafter, we must embrace all those who with absolute faith accept Allah in their hearts. We must pray to Allah in a state of unity, peacefulness, and truth, and then give greetings of peace to each brother. Standing face to face, our eyes looking directly into our brother's eyes, our hands clasping his hands, and our hearts embracing his heart with love, we must say, "May the peace of God be upon you." This is the unity and beauty of Islam, the beauty that Muhammad (Sal.) brought to the people. Wherever we go, our hearts must be in that state. Our prayers must be one-pointed, directed toward the same place, toward Allah, the One who is truth. If we can recite the praises of Allah and the Prophet, then look each other in the eye, give peaceful greetings, and embrace each other — if we can achieve that oneness of the heart with all lives, then we will be true believers.”

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (1900–1986) Sri Lankan Sufi leader

Love, God, People, Truth

“Here lies a most beautiful lady,
Light of step and heart was she;
I think she was the most beautiful lady
That ever was in the West Country.”

Walter de la Mare (1873–1956) English poet and fiction writer

An Epitaph.

Thinking, Light, Heart, Country

“I had once a beautiful fatherland.
The oak tree
Grew so high there, violets nodded softly.
It was a dream.It kissed me in German and spoke in German
(You would hardly believe
How good it sounded) the words: "I love you!"
It was a dream.”

Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) German poet, journalist, essayist, and literary critic

Ich hatte einst ein schönes Vaterland.
Der Eichenbaum
Wuchs dort so hoch, die Veilchen nickten sanft.
Es war ein Traum.Das küßte mich auf deutsch und sprach auf deutsch
(Man glaubt es kaum
Wie gut es klang) das Wort: "Ich liebe dich!"
Es war ein Traum.
In Der Fremde (In a Foreign Land)

Love, Dreams, Kiss, Tree

“If numbers aren't beautiful, I don't know what is.”

Paul Erdős (1913–1996) Hungarian mathematician and freelancer

Frequent remark, as quoted in My Brain Is Open : The Mathematical Journeys of Paul Erdos (1998) by Bruce Schechter, p. 14

“He had come on her that morning in a moment of disarray; her face had been pale and altered, and the diminution of her beauty had lent her a poignant charm. That is how she looks when she is alone! had been his first thought; and the second was to note in her the change which his coming produced.”

Edith Wharton book The House of Mirth

"The House of Mirth" http://www.readprint.com/chapter-10542/The-House-of-Mirth-Edith-Wharton (1905), bk. 1, ch. 6

Change

“Translators are like busy match-makers: they sing the praises of some half-veiled beauty, and extol her charms, and arouse an irresistible longing for the original.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

Maxim 426; translation by Bailey Saunders
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

Business, Singing

“We do not wish to penalise the machine for its inability to shine in beauty competitions, nor to penalise a man for losing in a race against an aeroplane. The conditions of our game make these disabilities irrelevant.”

Alan Turing Computing Machinery and Intelligence

Computing Machinery and Intelligence (1950)

Game

“Lycurgus the Lacedæmonian brought long hair into fashion among his countrymen, saying that it rendered those that were handsome more beautiful, and those that were deformed more terrible. To one that advised him to set up a democracy in Sparta, "Pray," said Lycurgus, "do you first set up a democracy in your own house."”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

57 Lycurgus
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders

Democracy, Fashion, Housing

“I believe life is about balance. My mom was brilliant, yet manipulative. Beautiful, but had more voices in her head than the Wu-Tang Clan. Loves her kids, killed her last husband. I say "last husband" because you don't get another one after that.”

Christopher Titus (1964) actor, writer, podcaster

Norman Rockwell is Bleeding (2004)

Love, Life, Moms

“Our neighborhood - this solar system, the cosmos, actually - is so much more vast and amazing than the paltry headlines, insanity, and politics crammed at us daily as so-called news. The beauty of the hood and discoveries that await us are deserving of our attention and mandatory to our survival as a species.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

Vanna Bonta on the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. BonNova | X PRIZE Foundation official http://space.xprize.org/ng-lunar-lander-challenge/2008/teams/bonnova

“She laughed out loud. It was a very nice laugh. No girl looks beautiful when she’s laughing hard, and girls who worry about looking beautiful don’t do it. Dorotha Keefer looked like a healthy, pretty girl having a good time, which when you come down to it is about the best way for a girl to look.”

Frederik Pohl (1919–2013) American science fiction writer and editor

The Merchants of Venus (p. 22)
Platinum Pohl (2005)

Way, Girl, Time

“The brain may take advice, but not the heart, and love, having no geography, knows no boundaries: weight and sink it deep, no matter, it will rise and find the surface: and why not? any love is natural and beautiful that lies within a person's nature; only hypocrites would hold a man responsible for what he loves, emotional illiterates and those of righteous envy, who, in their agitated concern, mistake so frequently the arrow pointing to heaven for the one that leads to hell.”

Truman Capote book Other Voices, Other Rooms

Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948)

Love, Hell, Nature, Heart

“Imagine the universe beautiful and just and perfect.
Then be sure of one thing:
The Is has imagined it quite a bit better than you have.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Illusions : The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977)

Imagination, Universe, Perfection

“He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much;
Who has gained the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children;
Who has filled his niche and accomplished his task;
Who has left the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul;
Who has never lacked appreciation of earth's beauty or failed to express it;
Who has always looked for the best in others and given the best he had;
Whose life was an inspiration;
Whose memory a benediction.”

Bessie Anderson Stanley (1879–1952) American poet

What is success?, quoted in He Has Achieved Success Who Has Lived Well, Laughed Often and Loved Much, in QuoteInvestigator.com (26 June 2012) http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/06/26/define-success/.

Success, Love, Life, Men

“He wants to dream like a young man
With the wisdom of an old man.
He wants his home and security,
He wants to live like a sailor at sea.
Beautiful loser, where you gonna fall?
You realize you just can't have it all.”

Bob Seger (1945) American singer-songwriter

Beautiful Loser.
Song lyrics, Beautiful Loser (1975)

Wisdom, Dreams, Home, Sea

“You shall see them on a beautiful quarto page, where a neat rivulet of text shall meander through a meadow of margin.”

Richard Brinsley Sheridan The School for Scandal

Act I, sc. i.
The School for Scandal (1777)

“That’s the difference between the old Scientology and the new: the brave new Scientology is all these beautiful buildings and real estate and no people.”

Mark Rathbun (1957) American whistleblower

The New York Times, The New York Times Company, Defectors Say Church of Scientology Hides Abuse, Laurie Goodstein, March 6, 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/us/07scientology.html?_r=0&pagewanted=all,

People

“My father said "Son, we're lucky in this town.
It's a beautiful place to be born.
It just wraps its arms around you.
Nobody crowds you, nobody goes it alone.
That you know flag flying over the courthouse
Means certain things are set in stone:
Who we are, what we'll do and what we won't."”

Bruce Springsteen (1949) American singer and songwriter

"Long Walk Home"
Song lyrics, Magic (2007)

Flying

“Well, then there was the bit in the local paper about the scholarship she’d won and how clever she was, and her name as beautiful as herself, Miranda. So I knew she was up in London studying art. It really made a difference, that newspaper article. It seemed like we became more intimate, although of course we still did not know each other in the ordinary way.
I can’t say what it was, the very first time I saw her, I knew she was the only one. Of course I am not mad, I knew it was just a dream and it always would have been if it hadn’t been for the money. I used to have daydreams about her, I used to think of stories where I met her, did things she admired, married her and all that. Nothing nasty, that was never until what I’ll explain later.”

John Fowles book The Collector

The Collector (1963)

Money, Dreams, Art, Way

“Music that I really love and believe in and think is extraordinarily honest and beautiful doesn't always become popular.”

Anthony Kiedis (1962) American singer

Oct, 1994 interview

Love, Music, Thinking

“Japan lives with drastic segregation between the sublime, the ugly, and the utterly without qualities. Dominance of the last 2 categories makes mere presence of the first stunning: when beauty 'happens', it is absolutely surprising.”

Rem Koolhaas (1944) Dutch architect (b.1944)

From "Learning Japanese", published in S,M,L,XL, New York: The Monacelli Press, 1995

“Personality is more important than beauty, but imagination is more important than both of them.”

Laurette Taylor (1884–1946) American stage and silent film actress

The Quality You Need Most, from Green Book Magazine (April 1914)

Imagination, Personality

“Beauty is the promise of happiness.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Actually by Stendhal: "La beauté n'est que la promesse du bonheur" (Beauty is no more than the promise of happiness), in De L'Amour (1822), chapter 17
Misattributed

Happiness

“For what the most neglects, most curious prove,
So Beauty's helped by Nature, Heaven, and Love.”

Torquato Tasso (1544–1595) Italian poet

Canto II, stanza 18 (tr. Fairfax)
Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)

Love, Nature, Help

“If I could put my hand on the north star, would it be as beautiful? The sea is lovely, but when we bathe in it, the beauty forsakes all the near water. For the imagination and senses cannot be gratified at the same time.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Beauty
1860s, The Conduct of Life (1860)

Love, Imagination, Star, Sense

“New shoots, old roots make a tree look beautiful
New approaches and old principles give us true Dharma
Sayings of sages and findings of scientists come together
Human life is then truly splendid –Mankuthimma.”

D. V. Gundappa (1887–1975) Indian writer

DVG’s Kannada poetry Kagga translated in to English.
The Wisdom of Kagga: A Modern Kannada Classic

Life, Tree

“At fifteen, beauty and talent do not exist; there can only be promise of the coming woman.”

Honoré de Balzac book Une fille d'Ève

A quinze ans, ni la beauté ni le talent n'existent: une femme est tout promesse.
Source: A Daughter of Eve (1839), Ch. 5: Florine.

“The epithet beautiful is used by surgeons to describe operations which their patients describe as ghastly, by physicists to describe methods of measurement which leave sentimentalists cold, by lawyers to describe cases which ruin all the parties to them, and by lovers to describe the objects of their infatuation, however unattractive they may appear to the unaffected spectators.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Preface to Ellen Terry and Bernard Shaw: A Correspondence (1931)
1940s and later

Lovers, Appearance

“Virtue, who was of squalid look and dress, said, if you obey me you will adorn yourself not with ornament nor beauty that passes away and perishes, but with everlasting and precious graces. And we are persuaded that everyone who flees from what is superficially good and follows what is reckoned hard and foolish finds happiness awaiting him. For Vice, veiling her actions in the beauties which properly belong to Virtue and are genuine, enslaves groveling people.”

Justin Martyr (100–165) early Christian martyr

Second Apology, in Readings in World Christian History (2013), p. 42

People, Happiness

“The man with a job to offer or land to sell has been America's land interpreter. On him has fallen the burden of presenting its romance, adventure, and beauty. He has failed so often because the land was not enriched by that cultural development and by those associations which satisfy the immigrant's need. The method has been to build a good industrial plant and to let the village grow up about it, with little thought of satisfying the longings of men for religion, knowledge, recreation, or even so simple a thing as gardens. Some time ago a factory having some idle land wondered what it could do for Mr. Hoover and started factory gardens, giving each man a small plot. The management made a discovery. The gardens cut down labor turnover. The crops were worth very little money, but the men did not want to leave until they had their potatoes in.”

Frances Kellor (1873–1952) American sociologist

What is Americanization? (1919)

Men, Money, Religion, Knowledge

“And if one is to express the great inevitable defeat that awaits us all, it must be done within the strict confines of dignity and beauty.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

As quoted in "2011's Prince of Asturias Prize for Letters" http://www.fpa.es/en/awards/2011/leonard-cohen-1/speech/

“And that sweet city with her dreaming spires,
She needs not June for beauty’s heightening.”

Matthew Arnold Thyrsis

St. 2
Thyrsis (1866)

Dreams

“This is the day on which the American people each year acknowledged that they have such a debt. It has been set aside that a grateful Nation may do fitting honor to the memory of those who have made the greatest and most voluntary contribution to it. Here about us, in this place of beauty and reverence, lies the mortal dust of a noble host, to whom we have come to pay our tribute, as thousands of other like gatherings will do throughout our land. In their youth and strength, their love and loyalty, those who rest here gave to their country all that mortality can give. For what they sacrificed we must give back the pledge of faith to all that they held dear, constantly renewed, constantly justified. Doing less would betray them and dishonor us.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, The Reign of Law (1925)

Love, People, Youth, Faith

“Muhammad took the fort [of Rawar] and stayed there for two or three days. He put six thousand fighting men, who were in the fort, to the sword, and shot some with arrows. The other dependents and servants were taken prisoners, with their wives and children… When the number of the prisoners was calculated, it was found to amount to thirty thousand persons, amongst whom thirty were the daughters of chiefs, and one of them was Rai Dahir's sister's daughter, whose name was Jaisiya. They were sent to Hajjaj. The head of Dahir and the fifth part of the prisoners were forwarded in charge of Ka'ab, son of Mharak. When the head of Dahir, the women, and the property all reached Hajjaj, he prostrated himself before Allah, offered thanksgivings and praises… Hajjaj then forwarded the head, the umbrellas, and wealth, and the prisoners to Walid the Khalifa. When the Khalifa of the time had read the letter, he praised Almighty Allah. He sold some of those daughters of the chiefs, and some he granted as rewards. When he saw the daughter of Rai Dahir’s sister he was much struck with her beauty and charms, and began to bite his finger with astonishment…. It is said that after the conquest was effected and the affairs of the country were settled and the report of the conquest had reached Hajjaj, he sent a reply to the following effect. 'O my cousin! I received your life-inspiring letter. I was much pleased and overjoyed when it reached me. The events were recounted in an excellent and beautiful style, and I learnt that the ways and rules you follow are conformable to the Law. Except that you give protection to all, great and small alike, and make no difference between enemy and friend. God says, - Give no quarter to Infidels, but cut their throats. Then know that this is the command of the great God [Allah]. You shall not be too ready to grant protection, because it will prolong your work. After this, give no quarter to any enemy except to those who are of rank.”

Muhammad bin Qasim (695–715) Umayyad general

The Chach Nama, in: Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, Volume I, p. 172-173. Also partially quoted in B.R. Ambedkar, Pakistan or The Partition of India (1946)
Quotes from The Chach Nama

Life, Women, Men, God

“Anyway, I would not be happy to see a beautiful, well-proportioned woman, no matter from which point of view, however extravagant, not only lose her beauty in order to, I would say, increase in size according to the law of vision, but no longer appear beautiful, and, in fact, become monstrous.”

El Greco (1541–1614) Greek painter, sculptor and architect

Quote from the marginalia, which El Greco inscribed in his copy of Daniele Barbaro's translation of Vitruvius' De architectura; as quoted by Liane Lefaivre and Alexander Tzonis, The Emergence of Modern Architecture: A Documentary History from 1000 to 1810 https://books.google.com/books?id=4xB9k7-Neb8C&pg=PT184; Routledge, New York, 2004) p. 165

Law, Appearance, Happiness

“A heart without music is like beauty without melancholy.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Tears and Saints (1937)

Music, Heart

“Ibn Battutah while in Bengal says that a pretty kaniz (slave girl) could be had there for one gold dinar (or 10 silver tankahs). "I purchased at this price a very beautiful slave girl whose name was Ashura. A friend of mine also bought a young slave named Lulu for two gold coins."”

Ibn Battuta (1304–1377) Moroccan explorer

Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1999). Theory and practice of Muslim state in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 4
Travels in Asia and Africa (Rehalã of Ibn Battûta)

Girl

“Love is of the very essence of life. It is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Yet it is more than the end of the rainbow. Love is at the beginning also, and from it springs the beauty that arches across the sky on a stormy day. Love is the security for which children weep, the desire of youth, the cement that binds marriage, and the smoothing oil that prevents devastating friction in the home; it is the peace of old age, the sunlight of hope shining through death. How rich are those who enjoy it in their associations with family, friends, church, and neighbors.”

Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

And the Greatest of These Is Love, Tambuli, Aug 1984, 1.

Love, Life, Death, Marriage

“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.

God, Flowers, Nature, Effort

“My work is not about "form follows function," but "form follows beauty" or, even better, "form follows feminine."”

Oscar Niemeyer (1907–2012) Brazilian architect

Source: Quoted in Tracy Metz, "'Form Follows Feminine': Niemeyer, 90, Is Still Going Strong," Architectural Record (December 1997), p. 35.

“I would like to have been present, if I could have my choice of all moments in music history, when Stokowski suddenly became conscious of his beautiful hands. That must have been a moment. Like stout Cortez [sic] on a peak in Darien (I know it was Balboa) he saw before him a limitless expanse, a whole uncharted sea that might be subjected to his influence, free from the encumbrance of a baton.”

Oscar Levant (1906–1972) American comedian, composer, pianist and actor

In "Music in Aspic," Harper's Magazine (October 1939) and A Smattering of Ignorance (1940); as quoted in "Lightning Wit Plays On American Musical Scene; Oscar Levant Answers Unspoken Request for 'Information, Please' With Uncensored Comments on Exalted Persons" by Ray C. B. Brown, in The Washington Post (January 14, 1940), p. E4

Music, History, Sea

“Religion in most countries, more or less in every country, is no longer what it was, and should be,—a thousand-voiced psalm from the heart of Man to his invisible Father, the fountain of all Goodness, Beauty, Truth, and revealed in every revelation of these; but for the most part, a wise prudential feeling grounded on mere calculation; a matter, as all others now are, of Expediency and Utility; whereby some smaller quantum of earthly enjoyment may be exchanged for a far larger quantum of celestial enjoyment. Thus Religion too is Profit, a working for wages; not Reverence, but vulgar Hope or Fear.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1820s, Signs of the Times (1829)

Truth, Fear, Religion, Hope

“I believe that the civilization India evolved is not to be beaten in the world. Nothing can equal the seeds sown by our ancestors, Rome went, Greece shared the same fate; the might of the Pharaohs was broken; Japan has become Westernized; of China nothing can be said; but India is still, somehow or other, sound at the foundation. The people of Europe learn their lessons from the writings of the men of Greece or Rome, which exist no longer in their former glory. In trying to learn from them, the Europeans imagine that they will avoid the mistakes of Greece and Rome. Such is their pitiable condition. In the midst of all this India remains immovable and that is her glory. It is a charge against India that her people are so uncivilized, ignorant and stolid, that it is not possible to induce them to adopt any changes. It is a charge really against our merit. What we have tested and found true on the anvil of experience, we dare not change. Many thrust their advice upon India, and she remains steady. This is her beauty: it is the sheet-anchor of our hope.
Civilization is that mode of conduct which points out to man the path of duty. Performance of duty and observance of morality are convertible terms. To observe morality is to attain mastery over our mind and our passions. So doing, we know ourselves. The Gujarati equivalent for civilization means “good conduct.””

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Sect. 13
Variant translations: I believe that the civilisation into which India has evolved is not to be beaten in the world. Nothing can equal the seeds sown by our ancestry. Rome went; Greece shared the same fate; the might of the Pharaohs was broken; Japan has become westernised; of China nothing can be said; but India is still, somehow or other, sound at the foundation.
Greece, Egypt, Rome — all have been erased from this world, yet we continue to exist. There is something in us, that our character never ceases from the face of this world, defying global hostility for centuries.
1900s, Hind Swaraj (1908)

Men, Fate, People, World

“If there is no meditation, then you are like a blind man in a world of great beauty, light and colour.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

Talks in Europe 1968
1970s, Second Penguin Krishnamurti Reader (1973)

World, Light

“I have never ceased to wonder at the thing we call human nature, with its times of beauty and its times of filthiness, or at the level of calm stupidity that lies in between the two.”

William March book Company K

Company K (1933)

Stupidity, Nature, Time

“"(Guru Mani Madhava Chakiar) began playing the dual role of Parvati and Shiva…sat on a wooden chair…I have never ever seen a Parvati so exquisitely beautiful. I have never seen a Shiva so handsome and so cunning. I sat there and wept as if I were alone in the presence of God. I then realized what theatre was all about — the falsehood of that old man made me arrive at a state where inhibitions and convictions, all became so fluid and beautiful. And this vision has remained with me always"
- Dr. Vijaya Mehta (Executive Director, National Center for Performing Arts- Bombay, acclaimed Indian theatre personality) about her experience of watching 72 year old Guru's Abhinaya of Parvativiraha”

Mani Madhava Chakyar (1899–1990) Indian actor

Abhinaya and Netrābhinaya Source: Theatre is a great lie that gets us to arrive at a great truth- Dr.Vijaya Mehta http://www.rotaryclubofbombay.org/ps121206.htm

God, Art, Personality

“(The processes are) doubly ruinous: they impoverish the earth by hastily removing, for the benefit of a few generations, the common resources which, once expended and dissipated, can never be restored; and second, in its technique, its habits, its processes, the paleotechnic period is equally inimical to the earth considered as a human habitat, by its destruction of the beauty of the landscape, its ruining of streams, its pollution of drinking water, its filling the air with a finely divided carboniferous deposit, which chokes both life and vegetation.”

Lewis Mumford (1895–1990) American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic

"The Theory and Practice of Regionalism" in The Sociological Review, vol. 20, nos. 1 and 2, 1928.

Life, Drink, Water

“The image of God always abides in the soul, whether this image be obsolete and clouded over as to amount to almost nothing; or whether it be obscured or disfigured, as is the case with sinners; or whether it be clear and beautiful as is the case with the just.”

Thomas Aquinas book Summa Theologica

I, q. 93, art. 8, ad 3
Summa Theologica (1265–1274)

God, Soul

“Since the beginning of our critical career, we have seen a vast deal of beautiful poetry pass into oblivion, in spite of our feeble efforts to recall or retain it in remembrance…The rich melodies of Keats and Shelley,—and the fantastical emphasis of Wordsworth,—and the plebeian pathos of Crabbe, are melting fast from the fields of our vision. The novels of Scott have put out his poetry. Even the splendid strains of Moore are fading into distance and dimness, except where they have been married to immortal music; and the blazing star of Byron himself is receding from its place of pride…. The two who have the longest withstood this rapid withering of the laurel, and with the least marks of decay on their branches, are Rogers and Campbell.”

Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey (1773–1850) British politician

Edinburgh Review (1829). He goes on to promise "enduring fame" to Felicia Hemans.

Music, Star, Effort

“Rapine, avarice, expense
This is idolatry; and these we adore:
Plain living and high thinking are no more:
The homely beauty of the good old cause
Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence,
And pure religion breathing household laws.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Written in London, September 1802, l. 9 (1802).

Fear, Peace, Religion, Law

“The poster first of all justified its existence on the grounds of utility, and should it further aspire to beauty of line and colour, may not our hoardings claim kinship with the galleries, and the designers of affiches pose proudly in the public eye as the masters of Holland Road or Bond Street Barbizon”

Aubrey Beardsley (1872–1898) English illustrator and author

and, recollect, no gate money, no catalogue
The Art of the Hoarding (1894)

Money

“Now it seems to me that we are in a universalising period... If we are to have world peace, we should have an understanding of all the idioms of beauty because the members of humanity who have created these idioms of beauty are going to be a part of us. And I would say that we are in a period when we are discovering and becoming acquainted with these idioms for the first time.”

Mark Tobey (1890–1976) American abstract expressionist painter

Modern Artists in America, R. Motherwell, A. Reinhardt and B. Karpel, First series, New York 1952, p. 28
1950's

World, Peace, Understanding, Time

“We cannot by a little verbal sophistry confound the qualities of different minds, nor force opposite excellences into a union by all the intolerance in the world. … If we have a taste for some one precise style or manner, we may keep it to ourselves and let others have theirs. If we are more catholic in our notions, and want variety of excellence and beauty, it is spread abroad for us to profusion in the variety of books and in the several growth of men's minds, fettered by no capricious or arbitrary rules.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

"On Criticism" Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

Men, Books, World

“I saw some amazing, beautiful, invigorating parts of America, but I saw some dark parts of America, an ugly side of America, a side of America that rarely sees the light of day. I refer, of course, to the anus and testicles of my co-star, Ken Davitian.”

Sacha Baron Cohen (1971) English stand-up comedian, writer, actor, and voice actor

On his travels to the United States. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-2549442_2,00.html

Star, Light, Parting

“That’s the words: "So I’m back to the velvet underground"—which is a clothing store in downtown San Francisco, where Janis Joplin got her clothes, and Grace Slick from Jefferson Airplane, it was this little hole in the wall, amazing, beautiful stuff—”back to the floor that I love, to a room with some lace and paper flowers, back to the gypsy that I was."”

Stevie Nicks (1948) American singer and songwriter, member of Fleetwood Mac

(on the inspiration for "Gypsy") Leah Greenblatt, "Stevie Nicks On Her Favorite Songs: A Music Mix Exclusive", http://music-mix.ew.com/2009/03/31/stevie-nicks-in/ Entertainment Weekly, 31 March 2009

Love, Flowers, Clothes