quotations about beauty
And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of love, is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the sake of that other beauty, using these steps only, and from one going on to two, and from two to all fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is.
PLATO
The Symposium
At the heart of all beauty lies something inhuman.
ALBERT CAMUS
The Myth of Sisyphus
Beauty is something we can affirm and intend to have more of. What happens then is our perceptual ability, no matter where we are, expands in that direction.
JAMES REDFIELD
Beliefnet interview, "The Evolution Revolution"
The angel Beauty walks her radiant way:
O, follow her! She never leads astray.
ALBERT LAIGHTON
"Beauty"
Beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure and are awed
because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Each single angel is terrifying.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Duino Elegies
Beauty, when it first discloses the mellowing touches of age, affects us painfully. It is like the tints of sunset, or the beauty of autumn--a melancholy beauty--beauty in decline--upon which we cannot gaze without a feeling of sadness--of sadness that it is passing away.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Beauty is a symbol of goodness; the admiration we feel for it is a symbol of the reverence inspired by the moral law.
ERMANNO BENCIVENGA
Exercises in Constructive Imagination
Affect not to despise beauty: no one is freed from its dominion;
But regard it not a pearl of price--it is fleeting as the bow in the clouds.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER
Proverbial Philosophy
The beauty of a lovely woman is like music ... the rounded neck, the dimpled arm, move us by something more than their prettiness--by their close kinship with all we have known of tenderness and peace.
GEORGE ELIOT
Adam Bede
While all is new, all is beautiful. That is a well-known song. Yes, and the next day the air changes into another one equally well known.
OCTAVE MIRBEAU
The Diary of a Chambermaid
It is part and parcel of every man's life to develop beauty in himself. All perfect things have in them an element of beauty.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
An essential quality of beauty is aloofness.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought