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Quotes about beauty

144 quotes from 110 people

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Why are all reflections lovelier than what we call the reality? — not so grand or so strong, it may be, but always lovelier?
George MacDonald1824–1905Phantastes (1858)
We think of Marilyn who was every man’s love affair with America. Marilyn Monroe who was blonde and beautiful and had a sweet little rinky-dink of a voice and all the cleanliness of all the clean American backyards.
Norman Mailer1923–2007Marilyn (1973), Ch. 1
- America
Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss!
Christopher Marlowe1564–1593Doctor Faustus (c. 1603), Act V, scene i, lines 91–93In context
- Women
Good-looking girls break hearts, and good-hearted girls mend them.
MMMignon McLaughlin1913–1983The Complete Neurotic’s Notebook (1981), Women & men
- Women
The body is meant to be seen, not all covered up.
Marilyn Monroe1926–1962Handwritten note responding to a question about posing nude, as quoted in International Herald Tribune (5 October 1984)
Beauty is everlasting
and dust is for a time.
Marianne Moore1887–1972“In Distrust of Merits” (1944)
Beauty is ever to the lonely mind a shadow fleeting; she is never plain. She is a visitor who leaves behind the gift of grief, the souvenir of pain.
Christopher Morley1890–1957
In every man’s heart there is a secret nerve that answers to the vibrations of beauty.
Christopher Morley1890–1957
If you want a golden rule that will fit everybody, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.
William Morris1834–1896“The Beauty of Life”, a lecture before the Birmingham Society of Arts and School of Design (19 February 1880), later published in Hopes and Fears for Art: Five Lectures Delivered in Birmingham, London, and Nottingham, 1878–1881 (1882)
- Advice
Beauty, which is what is meant by art, using the word in its widest sense, is, I contend, no mere accident to human life, which people can take or leave as they choose, but a positive necessity of life.
William Morris1834–1896The Beauty of Life (1880)
- Art
Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike.
John Muir1838–1914The Yosemite (1912), chapter 15: Hetch Hetchy Valley
- Nature
It is true that I look artificial, but I believe that I’m totally real. My look is really based on a country girl’s idea of glam. I wasn’t naturally pretty, so I make the most of anything I’ve got.
Dolly Parton1946–2026Dolly Parton: Making the most of everything CBS News (September 1, 2019).
The flowers anew, returning seasons bring! But beauty faded has no second spring.
Ambrose Philips1674–1749Often credited to Frank Moore Colby
Dear Pan and all the other Gods of this place, grant that I may be beautiful inside.
Plato429–349 BCPhaedrus, 279c
- Prayer
Thy grace, thy more than beauty,
Shall be an endless theme of praise,
And love — a simple duty.
Edgar Allan Poe1809–1849“To Frances S. Osgood” (1845).
- Love