beauty - beauty 2 - beauty 4
     

Beauty as we feel it is something
indescribable; what it is or what
it means can never be said.

George Santayana

   

In all ranks of life the human heart yearns for the beautiful; and the
beautiful things that God makes are his gift to all alike.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

      
We should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of our lives, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  

The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths.  These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern.  Beautiful people do not just happen.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

   

I have heard that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so today and every day
I make a conscious effort to behold the beauty in all people.  Every person
of every nation is a child of God, here by divine appointment.  All
people—my friends, relatives, even complete strangers—are works
of the divine Creator.  They are all tributes to God’s grandeur and
reflect the beauty that is God.  I am beautiful.  When I look in
the mirror, I see a unique, magnificent, God-centered being looking back.

unattributed

   

Beauty captivates the flesh in order to obtain permission
to pass right through to the soul. . . . When the feeling
for beauty happens to be associated with the sight of some
human being, the transference of love is made possible,
at any rate in an illusory manner.  But it is all the beauty
of the world, it is universal beauty, for which we yearn.

Simone Weil

   
  
  
To seek after beauty as an end, is a wild goose chase,
a will-o'-the-wisp, because it is to misunderstand the
very nature of beauty, which is the normal condition
of a thing as it should be.

Ade Bethune

  

I will hold beauty as a shield against despair.

Elsie Robinson

Nature is painting for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty if only we have eyes to see them.

John Ruskin

True beauty consists of purity of heart.

Mohandas Gandhi

If you look for ugliness, you will find it
everywhere.  When you look for beauty,
you will find that everywhere.

Narayana

    

We ourselves possess true Beauty when we are true to our
own being; ugliness is going to another order; knowing
ourselves, we are beautiful; in self-ignorance, we are ugly.

Plotinus

  

The beauty is forever there before us,
forever piping to us, and we are forever
failing to dance.  We could not help but
dance if we could see things as they really
are.  Then we should kiss both hands to Fate
and fling our bodies, hearts, minds, and
souls into life with a glorious abandonment,
an extravagant, delighted loyalty, knowing
that our wildest enthusiasm cannot more than
brush the hem of the real beauty and joy
and wonder that are always there.

Margaret Prescott Montague

    

Even the common articles made for daily use
become endowed with beauty when they are loved.

Soetsu Yanagi

   

   

Each thing in the universe is a vessel
full to the brim with wisdom and beauty.

Rumi

beauty - beauty 2 - beauty 4

   
One of the most important--and most neglected--elements in the
beginnings of the interior life is the ability to respond to reality,
to see the value and the beauty in ordinary things,
to come alive to the splendor that is all around us.

Thomas Merton

  

A spontaneous act of generosity, performed with unselfish grace
is an example of moral beauty, as are certain acts of courage;
genuine modesty is a possible example, as is selfless love.
Although moral beauty is a natural gift, it is nevertheless
more likely to emerge and flourish in societies
that appreciate and encourage it.

Yi-Fu Tuan

   
  

The human soul needs beauty even more than it needs bread.

D.H. Lawrence

   

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It may appear that the experience of true beauty is very difficult to achieve.  This is definitely not true.  In fact, the experience of beauty often arises naturally and unexpectedly.  Several weeks ago, I went kiting with my children.  It was a fine day.  I have not flown a kite for a long time, and I am very glad that I did it again.  For I discovered the beauty of kiting that day.  To see the kite take off in the wind, to let it soar into the heights, to feel the tightness of the string in my hand and to run around laughing and screaming  like a child--all these add up to an exhilarating experience.  It was such a tremendous feeling of liberation.  For a while, it looked as if the world was just one big kite, soaring into the blue sky.  There was a lot of action in that sport, but I felt a genuine sense of stillness and harmony at the same time.  I was one with the game.

Kenneth S. Leong

    

    
If I don't see something or someone as beautiful, I often
ask myself what it is in me that's keeping me from seeing
the beauty.  What part of me is blocking my vision so that
I can't see the most precious aspects of that thing or person?
If I can find an answer to that question, then seeing the
beauty all around me becomes easier, and my soul becomes richer.

tom walsh

   

When a sudden ray of sun or a moonbeam falls on a dreary street,
it makes no difference what it illumines--a broken bottle
on the ground, a fading flower in a field, or the flaxen
blonde hair of a child's head.  The object is transformed and
the viewer is transfixed.  Celebrate that moment of beauty and
take it with you in your memory.  It is God's gift to you.

Luci Swindoll

   
   

We all share beauty.  It strikes us indiscriminately.  There is no end
to the beauty for the person who is aware.  Even the cracks between
the sidewalk contain geometric patterns of amazing beauty.  If we
take pictures of them and blow up the photographs, we realize
we walk on beauty every day, even when things seem ugly around us.

Matthew Fox

    
There's incredible beauty in the world.
Open yourself to see it.

Stephen C. Paul

   
   

Anything that is beautiful is beautiful just as it is.
Praise forms no part of its beauty, since praise
makes things neither better nor worse.  This applies
even more to what it commonly called beautiful:  natural
objects, for example, or works of art.  True beauty
has no need of anything beyond itself.

Marcus Aurelius

   

What matters is not your outward appearance. . . but your
inner disposition.  Cultivate inner beauty, the gentle
gracious kind that God delights in.

The Apostle Peter

   

   
To analyze the charms of flowers is like dissecting music;
it is one of those things which it is far better to enjoy
than to attempt to understand.

Henry T. Tuckerman

   

Beauty remains even in misfortune.  If you just look for it,
you discover more and more happiness and regain your balance.
A person who's happy will make others happy;
a person who has courage will never die in misery.

Anne Frank

   
   

Three things drain a person's health:  worry, travel, and sin.
Three things restore a person's good spirits:  beautiful
sounds, sights, and smells.

The Talmud

   
Never underestimate the healing effects of beauty.

Florence Nightingale

   

Oh, better than the minting
Of a gold-crowned king
Is the safe-kept memory
Of a lovely thing.

Sara Teasdale

beauty - beauty 2 - beauty 4

    
    




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All things are perceived in the light of charity, and hence
under the aspect of beauty:  for beauty is simply
Reality seen with the eyes of love.

Evelyn Underhill