Quotes about beauty
21 passages from classic authors that speak of beauty, for example by Friedrich Nietzsche, John Keats and Henri Poincaré.
We kept the passages whose text touches on the theme, starting with those where it comes up most. Each is given word for word, with its author, its work and the reference of the passage. To browse an author’s quotes, follow the name.
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“I mean to say that the world is overfull of beautiful things, but it is nevertheless poor, very poor, in beautiful moments, and in the unveiling of those beautiful things.”
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“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
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“The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing.”
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“In these gorges, water is the mother of all life and the nurse of all beauty.”
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“True beauty could be discovered only by one who mentally completed the incomplete.”
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“All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.”
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“Truth is created for the sage, as beauty is for the feeling heart. They own each other.”
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“Teaism is the art of concealing beauty that you may discover it, of suggesting what you dare not reveal.”
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“I want more and more to perceive the necessary characters in things as the beautiful:—I shall thus be one of those who beautify things.”
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“'Twas in the beauteous month of May, / When all the flowers were springing, / That first within my bosom / I heard love’s echo ringing.”
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“Happy domestic life is like a beautiful summer’s evening; the heart is filled with peace; and everything around derives a peculiar glory.”
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“How beautiful Mamma’s face was when she smiled! It made her so infinitely more charming, and everything around her seemed to grow brighter!”
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“Scientific work must not be considered from the point of view of the direct usefulness of it. It must be done for itself, for the beauty of science.”
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“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.”
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“And when the people were going to market at twelve o’clock they found the Giant playing with the children in the most beautiful garden they had ever seen.”
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“Helen, thy beauty is to me / Like those Nicèan barks of yore / That gently, o’er a perfumed sea, / The weary way-worn wanderer bore / To his own native shore.”
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“Who could resist sitting down on such a beautiful carpet? and then the young children of Spring seated themselves, holding each other’s hands, and sang, and laughed, and grew.”
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“This is a splendid spring day for a poet, the air is so remarkably clear, the clouds are so beautiful, and the green grass has such a sweet smell. For many years I have not felt as I do at this moment.”
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“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.”
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“Frost and sun, the day is wondrous! / Thou still art slumbering, charming friend. / 'Tis time, O Beauty, to awaken: / Ope thine eyes, now in sweetness closed, / To meet the Northern Dawn of Morning / Thyself a north-star do thou appear!”
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“In autumn, it is the beauty of the evening which most deeply moves me, as I watch the crows seeking their roosting-place in twos and threes and fours, while the setting sun sends forth his beams gorgeously as he draws near the mountain’s rim.”