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Quotes about beauty

144 quotes from 110 people

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Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date
William Shakespeare1564–1616Sonnet 18 (1609)In context
- Love
- Poetry
Earth has not any thing to shew more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in it’s majesty:
This City now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
William Wordsworth1770–1850Composed upon Westminster Bridge (1807)In context
Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
William Wordsworth1770–1850Composed upon Westminster Bridge (1807)In context
- Nature
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow’d to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
Lord Byron1788–1824She Walks in Beauty (1815)In context
- Women
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
John Keats1795–1821Endymion (1818), Book IIn context
Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being
Ralph Waldo Emerson1803–1882The Rhodora (1839)In context
Glory be to God for dappled things
Gerard Manley Hopkins1844–1889Pied Beauty (1877)In context
- God
- Nature
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough
A. E. Housman1859–1936Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now (1896)In context
- Nature
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
W. B. Yeats1865–1939Easter, 1916 (1920)In context
- Change
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Robert Frost1874–1963Nothing Gold Can Stay (1923)In context
- Change
- Nature
Genius lasts longer than beauty.
Oscar Wilde1854–1900The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), Chapter IIn context
- Genius
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.
John Donne1572–1631The Good-Morrow (1633)In context
- Love
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
Wallace Stevens1879–1955Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird (1917)In context
For ’tis the mind that makes the body rich;
And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds,
So honour peereth in the meanest habit.
What, is the jay more precious than the lark
Because his feathers are more beautiful?
William Shakespeare1564–1616The Taming of the Shrew (c. 1591), Act IV, Scene III, spoken by PetruchioIn context
- Character
The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Burned on the water. The poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes.
William Shakespeare1564–1616Antony and Cleopatra (c. 1606), Act II, Scene II, spoken by EnobarbusIn context