Quotes about beauty
144 quotes from 110 people
He thought it happier to be dead,
To die for Beauty, than live for bread.
Ralph Waldo Emerson1803–1882May-Day and Other Pieces (1867), BeautyWhen a person expends the least amount of motion on one action, that is grace.
Anton Chekhov1860–1904Letter to Maxim Gorky (January 3, 1899)No spring, nor summer beauty hath such grace,
As I have seen in one autumnal face.
John Donne1572–1631Elegies, No. 9, The Autumnal, line 1Beauty soon grows familiar to the lover,
Fades in his eye, and palls upon the sense.
Joseph Addison1672–1719Cato, A Tragedy (1713)Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress.
If you sing of beauty though alone in the heart of the desert you will have an audience.
Kahlil Gibran1883–1931Sand and Foam (1926)The beautiful seems right
By force of Beauty, and the feeble wrong
Because of weakness.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning1806–1861Aurora Leigh (1857), Bk. II
John Muir1838–1914The Yosemite (1912), chapter 15: Hetch Hetchy Valley
Thích Nhất Hạnh1926–2022Touching Peace (1992), p. 1. Parallax Press
H. G. Wells1866–1946A Modern Utopia (1905), Ch. 3, sect. 8
Leonardo da Vinci1452–1519IX The Practice of Painting
Gustave Flaubert1821–1880To Guy de Maupassant (February 16, 1880)
George Eliot1819–1880Adam Bede (1859)
John Constable1776–1837Remark to a lady, as quoted in C. R. Leslie, Memoirs of the Life of John Constable (1843)Dear Pan and all the other Gods of this place, grant that I may be beautiful inside.
Plato429–349 BCPhaedrus, 279c