Aesthetic Beauty Quotes

Even the girl he'd danced with had thought it was some marvelous trick. She had been enveloped in real, bright fire and she had tipped back her head and laughed, the tumble of her black hair becoming a crackling waterfall of light, the heels of her shoes striking sparks like glittering leaping dust all over the floor, her skirt trailing flame as if he were following a phoenix tail. Magnus had spun and swung with her, and she'd thought he was marvelous for a single moment of bright illusion.
But, like love, fire didn't last. ~ Cassandra Clare

The effortlessness of a performance for which great strength is needed is a spectacle of whose aesthetic beauty the East has an exceedingly sensitive and grateful appreciation. ~ Eugen Herrigel

If I beat my grandmother to death to-morrow in the middle of Battersea Park, you may be perfectly certain that people will say everything about it except the simple and fairly obvious fact that it is wrong. Some will call it insane; that is, will accuse it of a deficiency of intelligence. This is not necessarily true at all. You could not tell whether the act was unintelligent or not unless you knew my grandmother. Some will call it vulgar, disgusting, and the rest of it; that is, they will accuse it of a lack of manners. Perhaps it does show a lack of manners; but this is scarcely its most serious disadvantage. Others will talk about the loathsome spectacle and the revolting scene; that is, they will accuse it of a deficiency of art, or aesthetic beauty. This again depends on the circumstances: in order to be quite certain that the appearance of the old lady has definitely deteriorated under the process of being beaten to death, it is necessary for the philosophical critic to be quite certain how ugly she was before. Another school of thinkers will say that the action is lacking in efficiency: that it is an uneconomic waste of a good grandmother. But that could only depend on the value, which is again an individual matter. The only real point that is worth mentioning is that the action is wicked, because your grandmother has a right not to be beaten to death. But of this simple moral explanation modern journalism has, as I say, a standing fear. It will call the action anythi ~ G.K. Chesterton

The more people explore the world, the more they realize in every country there's a different aesthetic. Beauty really is in the eye of the beholder. ~ Helena Christensen

Just because something causes you to have a feeling of aesthetic beauty does not make it a work of art. ~ Fred Ross

Arguments for preservation based on the beauty of wilderness are sometimes treated as if they were of little weight because they are "merely aesthetic". That is a mistake. We go to great lengths to preserve the artistic treasures of earlier human civilisations. It is difficult to imagine any economic gain that we would be prepared to accept as adequate compensation for, for instance, the destruction of the paintings in the Louvre. How should we compare the aesthetic value of wilderness with that of the paintings in the Louvre? Here, perhaps, judgment does become inescapably subjective; so I shall report my own experiences. I have looked at the paintings in the Louvre, and in many of the other great galleries of Europe and the United States. I think I have a reasonable sense of appreciation of the fine arts; yet I have not had, in any museum, experiences that have filled my aesthetic senses in the way that they are filled when I walk in a natural setting and pause to survey the view from a rocky peak overlooking a forested valley, or by a stream tumbling over moss-covered boulders set amongst tall tree-ferns, growing in the shade of the forest canopy, I do not think I am alone in this; for many people, wilderness is the source of the greatest feelings of aesthetic appreciation, rising to an almost mystical intensity. ~ Peter Singer

I love going somewhere like Japan where you can't understand a word of the advertising - you just see it for its aesthetic beauty, without feeling that you're being sold something. ~ Stanley Donwood

You look at women at the Republican convention and women at the Democratic convention. Republicans have a certain aesthetic beauty that involves more makeup, bigger hair, more lurid outfits. ~ Ron Reagan

I thought to discourage aesthetics ... I threw the bottlerack and the urinal in their faces and now they admire them for their aesthetic beauty. ~ Marcel Duchamp

...Pat wondered what inspiration an artist might find in the attempts of twenty-first-century architects to impose their phallic triumphs on the cityscape. Had any artist ever painted a contemporary glass block, for instance, or any other product of architectural brutalism that had laid its crude hands here and there upon the city?...If a building did not lend itself to being painted, then surely that must be because it was inherently ugly, whatever its claims to utility. And if it was ugly, then what was it doing in this delicately beautiful city? ~ Alexander McCall Smith

The depressing majority of comics seem to be about violence of one sort or another, [...] And I just don't enjoy violence. I can see that narratively it is often a powerful spike in a story, but I certainly don't want to dwell on it. I don't want it in my real life, I don't find violence entertaining in and of itself, or exciting, or funny.

But sex is happily part of most people's lives, and crosses the mind most days, I would say, even if it's just watching your partner get out of bed in the morning. [...] Most pornography is pretty awful. I mean, it does the job at the most utilitarian level, but it rarely excites other areas of the mind, or the eye. It's repetitive, bland and often a bit silly. I was interested in trying to do something that has an aesthetic beauty to it if possible, and something that tickles the intellect as well as the more basic areas of the mind. Maybe that's not possible, and as soon as you start to think too much, it stops working as pornography. I don't think so, but I guess it's in the eye and mind of the viewer. ~ Dave McKean

For two thousand years, the Church has guided the development of music, carefully legislating to fuse artistic talent and aesthetic beauty with the demands of the Faith. ~ Richard Morris

Pleading with those eyes, it's obvious what I'm meant to do. I embrace the beauty and kiss it deeply. ~ Patrick Bryant

The taste of the more recent accessions to the leisure class proper and of the middle and lower classes still requires a pecuniary beauty to supplement the aesthetic beauty, even in those objects which are primarily admired for the beauty that belongs to them as natural growths. ~ Thorstein Veblen

He knew he needed to release her, but once he allowed his physical connection to drop away, he was uncertain if he'd ever have a chance to reconnect. Instinctively, he knew Azami was elusive, like water flowing through fingers, or the wind shifting in the trees. He needed a way to seal her to him.
"How does one court a woman in Japan? Do I need your brothers' permission?"
She blinked again. Shocked. A hint of uncertainty crept into her eyes. She frowned, and he bent his head to swallow her protest before she could utter it. Her mouth trembled beneath his, and then she opened to him, like a flower, luring him deeper. Her arms slid around his neck, her body pressing tightly against his. He tightened his fingers in her hair.
He was burning, through and through, from the inside out, a hot melting of bone and tissue. He hadn't known he was lonely or even looking for something. He'd been complete. He loved his life. He was a man with teammates he trusted implicitly. He lived in wild places of beauty he enjoyed. He hadn't considered there would be a woman who could ever fit with him, who would ever turn his insides soft and his body hard.
Feel the same way, Azami. He didn't lift his mouth, kissing her again and again because one he'd made the mistake, he was addicted and what was the use fighting it? Not when it felt so damn right.
Somewhere along the line, his kiss went from sheer aggression and command, to absolute tenderness. The emotion for her rose like ~ Christine Feehan

I think falling in love is like discovering the magic of books. You think to yourself, 'how was I living before this? ~ Kamand Kojouri

The aesthetic principle is the same in every art, only the material differs. ~ Robert Schumann

It is a high distinction for a homely woman to be loved for her character rather than for beauty. ~ Plutarch

Be a person who radiates the fire of love to burn and purify everything around to create the beauty of joy and peace. ~ Debasish Mridha

The peace and beauty of a spring day had descended upon the earth like a benediction. ~ Kate Chopin

I don't make records that way, where I'm trying to please the marketplace or anything. Not because I have anything against that, it's just never been a part of my aesthetic, even when I was with the Pixies. ~ Frank Black

You can achieve enlightenment by simply spending time contemplating nature: the formation of clouds, the beauty of the forest, and the lifecycle of the beings that dwell within. ~ Loren Mayshark

Nature, too, supports our personal blossoming (if we have any quiet exposure to her) through her spontaneities, through her beauty, power, and mirroring, through her dazzling variety of species and habitats, and by way of the wind, Moon, Sun, stars, and galaxies. ~ Bill Plotkin

Between the dark, heavily laden treetops of the spreading chestnut trees could be seen the dark blue of the sky, full of stars, all solemn and golden, which extended their radiance unconcernedly into the distance. That was the nature of the stars. and the trees bore their buds and blossoms and scars for everyone to see, and whether it signified pleasure or pain, they accepted the strong will to live. flies that lived only for a day swarmed toward their death. every life had its radiance and beauty. i had insight into it all for a moment, understood it and found it good, and also found my life and sorrows good. ~ Hermann Hesse

My life has taught me that there is a wealth of strength within us, there is nothing we cannot handle. Life presents it's purpose and beauty in all sorts of ways. The trick is to stay open to one's strength, to not deny or strive to prove it, but rather to simply have it ~ Matthew W. Sanford

Make peace with the universe. Take joy in it. It will turn to gold. Resurrection will be now. Every moment, a new beauty. ~ Rumi

The reason of the unreasonableness which against my reason is wrought, doth so weaken my reason, as with all reason I do justly complain on your beauty. ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

He'd thought her unattractive in this mode, head turned down, voice so quiet. Not any longer. Some women blazed with light and energy. Miss Pursling reminded him of the pearlescent hint of dawn that crept under the door after a long, long night. There was a quiet grace to her, like a tiger pacing in its cage. There was a majesty in claws unused, in muscles poised for action that never came. There was a somber beauty to a caged beast. ~ Courtney Milan

The trails she blazed
Unexplored passion
And the exquisite notes
Of stories she keeps
She is wild beauty
One couldn't dare resist knowing

- Wild Callings - ~ Mystqx Skye

The rationalism of the creative minds was tempered by abundant fantasies, and the supreme beauty of the monuments was probably spoiled by the circumambient vanities and ugliness; in a few cases the Greeks came as close to perfection as it was possible to do, yet they were human and imperfect. ~ George Sarton

There was such a difference, he thought, between the beauty that illuminated, and the beauty that was illuminated. ~ R. Scott Bakker

I have been in the land of Faerie for years and it is a place where mortal blood is turned to fire. It is a place of beauty and terror beyond what can be imagined here. I have ridden with the Wild Hunt. I have carved a clear path of freedom among the stars and outrun the wind. And no I am asked to walk upon the earth again. ~ Cassandra Clare

Seek on high bare trails
Sky-reflecting violets...
Mountain-top jewels ~ Basho Matsuo

O King of glory, though you hide your beauty, yet the eye of my soul rends the veil. I see the angelic choirs giving you honor without cease. ~ Mary Faustina Kowalska

And that was the moment I realized: when the world felt dark and scary, love could whisk you off to go dancing; laughter could take some of the pain away; beauty could punch holes in your fear. I decided then that my life would be full of all three. ~ Emily Henry

Beauty in all things-no, we cannot hope for that; but some place set apart for it. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

Mestre. Say the word without hissing the conurbated villain, and pitying its citizens. As quickly as they can, two million tourists pass through, or by, Mestre each year, and each one will be struck by the same thought as they wonder at the aesthetic opposition that it represents. Mestre is an ugly town but ugly only in the same way that Michael Jackson might be desccribed as eccentric or a Tabasco Vindaloo flambéed in rocket fuel might be described as warm. Mestre is almost excremental in its hideousness: a fetid, fly-blown, festering, industrial urbanization, scarred with varicose motorways, flyovers, rusting railway sidings and the rubbish of a billion holidaymakers gradually burning, spewing thick black clouds into the Mediterranean sky. A town with apparently no centre, a utilitarian ever-expandable wasteland adapted to house the displaced poor, the shorebound, outpriced, domicile-deprived exiles from its neighbouring city. For, just beyond the condom- and polystyrene-washed, black-stained, mud shores of Marghera, Mestre's very own oil refinery, less than a mile away across the waters of the lagoon in full sight of its own dispossessed citizens, is the Jewel of Adriatic. Close enough for all to feel the magnetism, there stands the most beautiful icon of Renaissance glory and, like so much that can attract tourism, a place too lovely to be left in the hands of its natives, the Serenissima itself, Venice. ~ Marius Brill

Serenity and inner beauty come when we wait upon God. "Waiting" like that is not merely wasting time. ~ Eva Burrows

We're the only major company in the U.S. that is solely in the professional beauty industry. We promised hairdressers when we started that we would stay with them. If I went retail tomorrow then we would be four times our size overnight, but I'm going to be the one guy who kept his word. ~ John Paul DeJoria

Dour music has its own beauty, for the song of ruin is most fertile. ~ Steven Erikson

Forms of Love: A man once decided that all perfection and beauty was in the tree. It gave fruit, shelter, materials for manufacturers. It did this, too, without apparently making demands. It was there for 'good' purposes. So he taught people that 'tree' was 'good'.
Everyone eventually worshipped in forests and groves, and they loved trees. This pure occupation diverted most human attention for perhaps 10,000 years. These people mistook the immediate for the Real. So it is with man's present ideas about love.
His most sublime Ideas about love, if he but knew it, can be called the lowest of the possible perceptions of real love. ~ Idries Shah, Reflections

Your past was the same as your skin: with you for life, both the proverbial beauty marks . . . and the scars. ~ J.R. Ward

Beauty without intelligence is a masterpiece painted on a napkin. ~ Unknown

Here on the river I have known peace and beauty such as I never knew in any other place. There is always work here that I need to be doing and I have many worries, for life on the edge seems always threatening to go over the edge. But I am always surprised, when I look back on times here that I know to have been laborious or worrisome or sad, to discover that they were never out of the presence of peace and beauty, for here I have been always in the world itself. ~ Wendell Berry

It is, finally, a word is untimely in three different senses, and bearing it as one's treasure will not win one anyone's favours; one rather risks finding oneself outside everyone's camp ... Beauty is the word that shall be our first. ~ Hans Urs Von Balthasar

Every experience of beauty points to [eternity]. ~ Hans Urs Von Balthasar

The stillness of October gold
Went out like beauty from a face. ~ Edwin Arlington Robinson

Our failure is not that we chose earth over heaven: it is that we fail to see the divine in the earth, already active and working, pouring forth grace and spilling glory into our lives. Artists, whether they are professed believers or not, tap into this grace and glory. There is a "terrible beauty" operating throughout creation. If Christ announced his postresurrection reality into the darkness, even into hell, as the Bible and Christian catechism suggests, then, as theologian Abraham Kuyper put it, there is not one inch of earth that Christ does not call "Mine! ~ Makoto Fujimura

Health, longevity, beauty, are other names for personal purity; and temperance is the regimen for all. ~ Amos Bronson Alcott

The morning sun on her white hair and pale face made her seem almost translucent. She'd been a beautiful woman in her day, with wide eyes, high cheekbones, and a long, thin nose. Sometimes you could still catch sight of that beauty, and it was like looking through enchanted glass. ~ Sarah Addison Allen