Time may be a great healer, but it’s a lousy beautician.
—Indian Proverb
If virtue accompanies beauty it is the heart’s paradise; if vice be associate with it, it is the soul’s purgatory.—It is the wise man’s bonfire, and the fool’s furnace.
—Francis Quarles (1592–1644) English Religious Poet
The most beautiful view is the one I share with you.
—Unknown
Nothing can be beautiful which is not true.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
A poor beauty finds more lovers than husbands.
—English Proverb
The real sin against life is to abuse and destroy beauty, even one’s own—even more, one’s own, for that has been put in our care and we are responsible for its well-being
—Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980) American Short-Story Writer, Novelist
The beauty of the soul shines out when a man bears with composure one heavy mischance after another, not because he does not feel them, but because he is a man of high and heroic temper.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
Without grace, beauty is an unbaited hook.
—French Proverb
Beauty, unaccompanied by virtue, is as a flower without perfume.
—French Proverb
The loveliest face in all the world will not please you if you see it suddenly eye to eye, at a distance of half an inch from your own.
—Max Beerbohm (1872–1956) British Essayist, Caricaturist, Novelist
Dragons will wander about
the waste places,
and the phoenix will soar
from her nest of fire
into the air.
We shall lay our hands
upon the Basilisk,
and see the jewel
in the toad’s head.
Champing his gilded oats,
the hippogriff will stand
in our stalls,
and over our heads
will float the bluebird,
singing of beautiful and
impossible things,
of things that are lovely
and that never happened,
of things that are not
and that should be.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good; A shining gloss that fadeth suddenly; A flower that dies when first it ‘gins to bud, A brittle glass that’s broken presently.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
By plucking her petals, you do not gather the beauty of the flower.
—Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali Poet, Polymath
The beauty of the world, which is so soon to perish, has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder.
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist
Beauty is a primeval phenomenon, which itself never makes its appearance, but the reflection of which is visible in a thousand different utterances of the creative mind, and is as various as nature herself.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
Anything in any way beautiful derives its beauty from itself, and asks nothing beyond itself. Praise is no part of it, for nothing is made worse or better by praise.
—Marcus Aurelius (121–180) Emperor of Rome, Stoic Philosopher
I hope you have lost your good looks, for while they last any fool can adore you, and the adoration of fools is bad for the soul. No, give me a ruined complexion and a lost figure and sixteen chins on a farmyard of Crow’s feet and an obvious wig. Then you shall see me coming out strong.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
There is no more potent antidote to low sensuality than admiration of the beautiful.—All the higher arts of design are essentially chaste, without respect to the object.—They purify the thoughts, as tragedy purifies the passions.—Their accidental effects are not worth consideration; for there are souls to whom even a vestal is not holy.
—August Wilhelm Schlegel (1767–1845) German Poet, Literary Critic, Scholar
In every man’s heart there is a secret nerve that answers to the vibrations of beauty.
—Christopher Morley (1890–1957) American Novelist, Essayist
Beauty: The adjustment of all parts proportionately so that one cannot add or subtract or change without impairing the harmony of the whole.
—Leon Battista Alberti (1404–72) Italian Architect, Humanist, Painter, Art Critic
Michael Robartes remembers forgotten beauty and, when his arms wrap her round, he presses in his arms the loveliness which has long faded from the world. Not this. Not at all. I desire to press in my arms the loveliness which has not yet come into the world.
—James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish Novelist, Poet
Tell them dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,
Then beauty is its own excuse for being:
Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
I never sought to ask, I never knew:
But, in my simple ignorance suppose
The selfsame power that brought me there brought you.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
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 deprived of its proper foils and adjuncts ceases to be enjoyed as beauty, just as light deprived of all shadows ceases to be enjoyed as light.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
Sunsets are so beautiful that they almost seem as if we were looking through the gates of Heaven.
—John Lubbock (1834–1913) English Politician, Biologist
Everything has its beauty but not everyone sees it.
—Confucius (551–479 BCE) Chinese Philosopher
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
Far away, there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations; I may not reach them but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.
—Louisa May Alcott (1832–88) American Novelist
The average woman would rather have beauty than brains, because the average man can see better than he can think.
—Unknown
Beauty hath so many charms one knows not how to speak against it; and when a graceful figure is the habitation of a virtuous soul—when the beauty of the face speaks out the modesty and humility of the mind, it raises our thoughts up to the great Creator; but after all, beauty, like truth, is never so glorious as when it goes the plainest.
—Laurence Sterne (1713–68) Irish Anglican Novelist, Clergyman
Industry is the root of all ugliness.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Warriors of the light are not perfect. Their beauty lies in accepting this fact and still desiring to grow and to learn.
—Paulo Coelho (b.1947) Brazilian Songwriter, Novelist
The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
An appearance of delicacy, and even of fragility, is almost essential to beauty.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
There should be as little merit in loving a woman for her beauty, as a man for his prosperity, both being equally subject to change.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
There is certainly no absolute standard of beauty. That precisely is what makes its pursuit so interesting.
—John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) Canadian-Born American Economist
There are as many kinds of beauty as there are habitual ways of seeking happiness.
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–67) French Poet, Art Critic, Essayist, Translator
The absence of flaw in beauty is itself a flaw.
—Havelock Ellis (1859–1939) British Sexologist, Physician, Social Reformer
Do you love me because I’m beautiful, or am I beautiful because you love me?
—Oscar Hammerstein II (1895–1960) American Songwriter, Composer, Theater Producer, Writer
Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.
—Socrates (469BCE–399BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher
Beauty is as summer fruits, which are easy to corrupt and cannot last; and for the most part it makes a dissolute youth, and an age a little out of countenance; but if it light well, it makes virtues shine and vice blush.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
Exuberance is beauty.
—William Blake (1757–1827) English Poet, Painter, Printmaker
Beauty?.. To me it is a word without sense because I do not know where its meaning comes from nor where it leads to.
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish Painter, Sculptor, Artist
Let us live for the beauty of our own reality.
—Tim Robbins (b.1958) American Actor, Director
If you have never seen beauty in a moment of suffering, you have never seen beauty at all. If you have never seen joy in a beautiful face, you have never seen joy at all.
—Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) German Poet, Dramatist
A beautiful form is better than a beautiful face; it gives a higher pleasure than statues or pictures; it is the finest of the fine arts.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
No one ever called me pretty when I was a little girl.
—Marilyn Monroe (1926–62) American Actor, Model, Singer
Beauty is in the eye of it’s beholder.
—Unknown
Beauty will be convulsive or will not be at all.
—Andre Breton (1896–1966) French Poet, Essayist, Critic