more passages and quotations on beauty

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

George Santayana

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

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

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

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

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

quotations - contents - welcome page - obstacles
the people behind the words - our current e-zine - articles and excerpts
Daily Meditations, Year One - Year Two - Year Three - Year Four

Sign up for your free daily spiritual or general quotation ~ ~ Sign up for your free daily meditation

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

beauty - beauty 2
beauty 4 - beauty 5

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

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

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

Reared as we were in a youth- and beauty-oriented society,
we measured ourselves by our ornamental value.

Janet Harris

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

Stephen C. Paul

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

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

From the spiritual side:

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

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

beauty - beauty 2
beauty 4 - beauty 5

Articles and book excerpts on Beauty:

You're a Beautiful Person tom walsh
Snowy Day Gifts Joe Mazzella

We have some inspiring and motivational books that may interest you. Our main way of supporting this site is through the sale of books, either physical copies or digital copies for your Amazon Kindle (including the online reader). All of the money that we earn through them comes back to the site in one way or another. Just click on the picture to the left to visit our page of books, both fiction and non-fiction!

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

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

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

I Lost My Soul To-Day
Angela Morgan

I lost my soul to-day
For the sake of scrubbing and buttons and trash.
It was a wonder-day of beauty.
Rapturous leaves afire in the sun besought me;
Butterflies beckoned, birds entreated with song;
The great mother sky, wide and blue as the ocean,
Implored me to drift on the miracle tide
Of gladness and renewing.

But I turned away.
There were chairs to be dusted, floors to be swept. . . .
Floors, mind you! Common boards, dirt-covered,
That must absorb my being.
And the ecstatic world without
Pleaded with me in vain,
A book lay open on the table.
In it were hidden jewel-truths
More wonderful than gems in the depths of the earth.
"Gather us! Take us! Be comforted and inspired!". . . .
But there were buttons to be sewn upon garments,
Buttons to be sorted and stowed in boxes;
Buttons, mind you, that must absorb my soul!

A Master musician there was--
I might have heard him had I paused to think it
This golden afternoon, the music of angels. . . .
But there was trash in the cellar that must be cleared away--
Trash, mind you! Papers and dust and rags
That must smother my soul.
And the great musician played, unheeded.
Had I gone a few rods, I might have listened;
Had I gone a few paces from the fettered path. . . .

But I lost my soul today,
For scrubbing and buttons and trash.
There will be many, many days when I may scrub and sew and clean.
I traded Beauty for an hour of rubbish,
I sold my birthright for a drudge's dole.
O Beauty, stand once more upon my threshold!
O Day of Wonder, beckon me again!
That I, the penitent, may open wide my dwelling
And plead with Loveliness as she has pled with me.