beauty - beauty 3 - beauty 4

The most natural beauty in the world
is honesty and moral truth.
For all beauty is truth.

Lord Shaftesbury
    
Beauty means this to one person, perhaps, and that to the other. And yet
when any one of us has seen or heard or read that which to us is beautiful,
we have known an emotion which is in every case the same in kind,
if not in degree; an emotion precious and uplifting.

John Galsworthy

      

Some people, no matter how old they get, never lose their beauty --
they merely move it from their faces into their hearts.

Martin Buxbaum
  
  
There is certainly no absolute standard of beauty.  That precisely
is what makes its pursuit so interesting.

John Kenneth Galbraith
  

Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not find yourself beautiful yet,
act as does the creators of statues that are to be made beautiful; they cut away here, they smooth there, they make this line lighter, this other purer, until a lovely face has grown upon their work.  So do you also; cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is in shadow; labor to make all one glow of beauty and never cease chiseling your statue until there shall shine out on you from it the godlike splendor of virtue,
until you shall see the perfect Goodness established in the stainless shrine.

Plotinus
   
Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations.
I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty,
believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.

Louisa May Alcott

  

To a lady who, looking at an engraving of a house, called it an ugly
thing, he said, "No, madam, there is nothing ugly; I never saw an ugly
thing in my life:  for let the form of an object be what it may--light, shade,
and perspective will always make it beautiful."

John Constable

   
  
  

Whenever I experience something beautiful, I am with Soul.
That moment of inward breath, that pause and awareness of
"how beautiful this is" is a prayer of appreciation,
a moment of gratitude in which I behold beauty and am one with it.

Jean Shinoda Bolen
  

Looking for and enjoying beauty
is another way to nourish the soul.
The universe is in the habit of
making beauty.  There are flowers
and songs, snowflakes and smiles,
acts of great courage, laughter
between friends, a job well done,
the smell of fresh-baked bread.
Beauty is everywhere, ready to
nourish the soul.  It must only
be seen to begin helping us.

Matthew Fox
  

Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. 
Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

Franz Kafka
   

  

Too late I loved you, O Beauty so ancient yet ever new!
Too late I loved you!  And, behold, you were within me,
and I out of myself, and there I searched for you.

St Augustine

  

Straight is the line of duty;
Curved is the line of beauty;
Follow the straight line, thou shalt see
The curved line ever follow thee.

William McCall
  

beauty - beauty 3 - beauty 4

Anne Frank

Think of all the beauty still left
around you and be happy.

What is really beautiful needs no adorning.  We do not grind down the pearl upon a polishing stone.

Sataka
  

Truth exists for the wise,
beauty for the feeling heart.

Schiller
   
  
That which is striking and beautiful is not always good,
but that which is good is always beautiful.

Nino de L'Enclos
  

 HOME - contents - Daily Meditations - abundance - acceptance - achievement - action - adversity - advertising - aging - ambition - anger - anticipation
apathy - appreciation - arrogance - art - attitude - authenticity - awakening - awareness - awe - balance - beauty - being yourself - beliefs - body
brooding - busyness - celebration - challenges - change - character - children - choices - Christianity - coincidence - commitment - common sense
community - comparison - compassion - complaining - compliments - compromise - confidence - conformity - conscience - contentment - control
courage - covetousness - creativity - criticism - cruelty -  death - decisions - desire - determination - discouragement - diversity - doubt - dreams
earth - education - ego - encouragement - enlightenment - enthusiasm - envy - eternity - exercise - experience - failure -  faith - family - fathers
fault-finding - fear - finances - flowers - forgiveness - freedom - friendship - fun - gardening - generosity - gentleness - giving - goals - God
goodness - grace - gratitude - greed - grief - growing up - guilt - happiness - hatred - healing - health - heart - helpfulness - home - honesty - hope
hospitality - humility - ideals - idleness  - idolatry - ignorance -  imagination - impatience - individuality - inspiration - integrity - introspection - intuition
jealousy - joy - judgment - kindness - knowledge - laughter - laziness - leadership - learning - letting go - life - listening - loneliness - love - lying
magic - marriage - materialism - meanness - mindfulness - miracles - mistakes - mistrust - money - mystery - nature - negative attitude - now - oneness
open-mindedness - opportunity - optimism - pain - patience - peace - perfectionism - perseverance - perspective - pessimism - play - positive thoughts
possessions - potential - prayer - prejudice - pride - principle - problems - prosperity - purpose - reading - reflection - relationships - religion - respect
resentment - responsibility - rest - revenge - risk - role models - sadness - safety - self - self-love - self-pity - self-respect - serving others - shame
silence - simplicity - smiles - solitude - sorrow - spirit - stress - stupidity - success - suffering - talent - teachers - thoughts - time - today - tolerance
trees - trust - truth - unfulfilled dreams - values - vanity - walking - war - weight issues - wisdom - women - wonder - work - worry - worship - youth
spring - summer - fall - winter - Christmas - Thanksgiving - New Year - America - zen sayings - articles & excerpts - Native American wisdom
The Law of Attraction  - obstacles to living life fully - e-zine archives - quotations contents - our most recent e-zine - book and movie reviews
heart - the inner child - the past - parenting - poetry - slowing down - Great Thinkers - the people behind the words

  

While I was looking out today there came a flying burst of sun, and the little corner became a sudden feast of delicate colour; the rich green of the grass, the foliage of the lime-trees, their brown wrinkled stems, the pale moss on the walls, the bright points of colour in the emblazonries of the window, made a sudden delicate harmony of tints.  I had seen the place a hundred times before without ever guessing what a perfect picture it made.
What a strange power the perception of beauty is!  It seems to ebb and flow like some secret tide, independent alike of health or disease, of joy or sorrow.  There are times in our lives when we seem to go singing on our way, and when the beauty of the world sets itself like a quiet harmony to the song we uplift.

A.C. Benson
  

Beauty is an all-pervading presence. It unfolds to the numberless
flowers of the Spring; it waves in the branches of the trees and in
the green blades of grass; it haunts the depths of the earth and
the sea, and gleams out in the hues of the shell and the precious stone.

And not only these minute objects, but the ocean, the mountains,
the clouds, the heavens, the stars, the rising and the setting sun
all overflow with beauty. The universe is its temple; and those people
who are alive to it can not lift their eyes without feeling themselves
encompassed with it on every side.

Now, this beauty is so precious, the enjoyment it gives so refined
and pure, so congenial without tenderest and noblest feelings, and
so akin to worship, that it is painful to think of the multitude of people
as living in the midst of it, and living almost as blind to it as if, instead
of this fair earth and glorious sky, they were tenants of a dungeon.

An infinite joy is lost to the world by the want of culture of this
spiritual endowment.  The greatest truths are wronged if not linked
with beauty, and they win their way most surely and deeply into
the soul when arrayed in this their natural and fit attire.

William Ellery Channing
  

Wherever snow falls, or water flows, or birds fly, wherever day and night meet in twilight,
wherever the blue heaven is hung by clouds, or sown with stars, wherever are forms
with transparent boundaries, wherever are outlets into celestial space, wherever is danger,
and awe, and love, there is Beauty, plenteous as rain, shed for thee.

unttributed
  
  

Be grateful for the beauty all around you
Appreciate the sky while it's blue
When skies turn to grays
Love that color as it stays
With such variety and diversion
Don't greet the day with aversion
Or fall for the mediocre and mundane
Keep your thought bright, uplifted and sane
Life forever flows with a forward motion
Ride the highest wave in this beautiful ocean.

Sandra Imperatore
with many thanks for your kind submission!
  
Things looked at patiently from one side after another
generally end by showing a side that is beautiful.

Robert Louis Stevenson
   
 

Beauty, I believe, comes from God;
therefore, there can be no beauty without goodness.

Baldassare Castiglione

beauty - beauty 3 - beauty 4

    

The kind of beauty I want most is the hard-to-get
kind that comes from within -- strength, courage, dignity.

Ruby Dee
 
There are no better cosmetics than a severe temperance and purity,
modesty and humility, a gracious temper and calmness of spirit;
and there is no true beauty without the signatures
of these graces in the very countenance.

John Ray
  
  

   
   

Two great Kindle books from our site!  First, the daily meditations from the first year are gathered together in a single volume at just $2.99 for the entire year, and second, almost 4,000 of our most motivating and inspiring quotations are gathered in one volume for just 99 cents-- you can have thousands of quotations that took over a decade to pull together, all on your own PC, Mac, or Kindle, to take with you wherever you go, to read whenever you feel the need for inspiring thoughts.

   
It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make me better be;
Or standing long an oak tree, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear:
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night--
It was the plant and flower of Light.
In small proportions we just beauties see,
And in short measures life may perfect be.

Ben Jonson