The most natural beauty in the world is honesty and moral truth; for all beauty is truth. True features make the beauty of a face; and true proportions the beauty of architecture; as true measures that of harmony and music. In poetry, which is all fable, truth still is the perfection.
—Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury (1621–83) English Statesman
If you get simple beauty and naught else, you get about the best God invents.
—Robert Browning (1812–89) English Poet
The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
Everything in the universe is a pitcher brimming with wisdom and beauty.
—Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi (1207–73) Persian Muslim Mystic
All beauty does not inspire love; some beauties please the sign without captivating the affections.
—Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish Novelist
To be surrounded by beautiful things has much influence upon the human creature; to make beautiful things has more.
—Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) American Feminist, Writer
It is better to be first with an ugly woman than the hundredth with a beauty.
—Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American Novelist, Human Rights Activist
There is no cosmetic for beauty like happiness.
—Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington (1789–1849) Irish Novelist, Literary Hostess
Beauty is the pilot of the young soul.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Everything has its beauty but not everyone sees it.
—Confucius (551–479 BCE) Chinese Philosopher
What is beautiful is good, and who is good will soon be beautiful.
—Sappho (c.630–c.580 BCE) Greek Poet
Things are beautiful if you love them.
—Jean Anouilh (1910–87) French Dramatist
Beauty is an omnipresence of death and loveliness, a smiling sadness that we discern in nature and all things, a mystic communion that the poet feels.
—Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) British Actor
Beauty is no quality in things themselves: it exists merely in the mind which contemplates them.
—David Hume (1711–76) Scottish Philosopher, Historian
Beauty is but the sensible image of the Infinite.—Like truth and justice it lives within us; like virtue and the moral law it is a companion of the soul.
—George Bancroft (1800–91) American Historian, Politician
The definition of a beautiful woman is one who loves me.
—Sloan Wilson (1920–2003) American Novelist, Writer
Beauty is the purgation of superfluities.
—Michelangelo (1475–1564) Italian Painter, Sculptor, Architect, Poet, Engineer
Love beauty; it is the shadow of God on the universe.
—Gabriela Mistral (1889–1957) Chilean Poet, Educator, Diplomat
I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.
—e. e. cummings (1894–1962) American Poet, Writer, Painter
To me, fair friend, you never can be old. For as you were when first your eye I eyed. Such seems your beauty still.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
After all, it is the divinity within that makes the divinity without; and I have been more fascinated by a woman of talent and intelligence, though deficient in personal charms, than I have been by the most regular beauty.
—Washington Irving (1783–1859) American Essayist, Biographer, Historian
Beauty is one of the rare things that do not lead to doubt of God.
—Jean Anouilh (1910–87) French Dramatist
Let us live for the beauty of our own reality.
—Tim Robbins (b.1958) American Actor, Director
Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.
—Walt Whitman (1819–92) American Poet, Essayist, Journalist
I have found that all ugly things are made by those who strive to make something beautiful, and that all beautiful things are made by those who strive to make something useful.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Nothing is more the child of art than a garden.
—Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish Novelist, Poet, Playwright, Lawyer
How goodness heightens beauty!
—Hannah More
You can take no credit for beauty at sixteen. But if you are beautiful at sixty, it will be your soul’s own doing.
—Marie Stopes (1880–1958) British Author, Social Activist
Nothing is beautiful, except man alone: all aesthetics rests upon this naivete, which is its first truth. Let us immediately add the second: nothing is ugly except the degenerating man—and with this the realm of aesthetic judgment is circumscribed.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
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