Beauty Speaks Quotes

Do you think they're doing it?' said Alexon. Charls coughed on his wine. 'I beg your pardon?' 'The King and Prince Laurent. Do you think they're doing it?' 'Well, it's not for me to say.' Charls avoided looked at the Prince. 'I think they are,' volunteered Guilliame. 'Charls met the Prince of Vere once. He said he was so beautiful that if he were a pet he'd spark a bidding war the likes of which no one had ever seen.' 'I meant, in an honourable way,' Charls said, quickly. 'And everyone in Akielos speaks of the virility of Damianos,' continued Guilliame. 'I don't think it should follow that - ' Charls began. 'My cousin told me,' said Alexon, proudly, 'he met a man who had once been a famous gladiator from Isthima. He lasted only minutes in the arena with Damianos. But afterwards Damianos had him in his chambers for six hours.' 'You see? How could a man like that resist a beauty like the Prince?' Guilliame sat back triumphantly. 'Seven hours,' said Lamen, frowning slightly. 'Here ~ C.S. Pacat

So, the gods don't hand out all their gifts at once, not build and brains and flowing speech to all. One man may fail to impress us with his looks but a god can crown his words with beauty, charm, and men look on with delight when he speaks out. Never faltering, filled with winning self-control, he shines forth at assembly grounds and people gaze at him like a god when he walks through the streets. Another man may look like a deathless one on high but there's not a bit of grace to crown his words. Just like you, my fine, handsome friend. ~ Homer

Firmly planted. Not fallen from on high: sprung up from below. Ochre, the color of burnt honey. The color of a sun buried a thousand years ago and dug up only yesterday. Fresh green and orange stripes running across its still-warm body. Circles, Greek frets: scattered traces of a lost alphabet? The belly of a woman heavy with child, the neck of a bird. If you cover and uncover its mouth with the palm of your hand, it answers you with a deep murmur, the sound of bubbling water welling up from its depths; if you tap its sides with your knuckles, it gives a tinkling laugh of little silver coins falling on stones. It has many tongues: it speaks of the language of clay and minerals, of air currents flowing between canyon walls, of washerwomen as they scrub, of angry skies, of rain. A vessel of baked clay: do not put it in a glass case alongside rare precious objects. It would look quite out of place. Its beauty is related to the liquid that it contains and to the thirst that it quenches. Its beauty is corporal: I see it, I touch it, I smell it, I hear it. If it is empty, It must be filled; if it is full, it must be emptied. I take it by the shaped handle as I would take a woman by the arm, I lift it up, I tip over a pitcher into which I pour milk or pulque - lunar liquids that open and close the doors of dawn and dark, waking a sleeping. ~ Octavio Paz

Quality speaks by itself. Rightly communicated it creates Joy. Like an Infant needs no words to express to her mother. Any success of communication enhances beauty of both, which too needs no words to endorse. ~ Priyavrat Thareja

Early, I indentured myself to the five horizontal lines where black notes were written on a sheet of music. It is a place of world of signs and notations that speaks to me with perfect clarity. It is a place of time signatures, fermatas, ledger lines, grace notes, and demisemiquavers that are the common tongue and heritage of musicians all over the world ... It is something I cannot imagine being without. For without music, life is a journey through a desert that has not ever heard the rumor of God. In music's sweet harmony, I had all the proof I needed of a God who held the earth together between the staffs, where the heavens lay. Here, he marked all the lines and spaces with notes so perfect that they praised all of his creation with their beauty. ~ Pat Conroy

But when The Spirit speaks, - or beauty from the sky Descends into my being, - when I hear The storm-hymns of the mighty ocean roll, Or thunder sound, - the champion of the storm! - Then I feel envy for immortal words, The rush of living thought; oh! then I long To dash my feelings into deathless verse, That may administer to unborn time, And tell some lofty soul how I have lived A worshipper of Nature and of Thee! ~ Robert Montgomery

...she speaks words so powerful the wind etches them inside the atmosphere for women to remember through history. 'I exist. Outside of being a mother, a wife, a sister, a daughter, I exist. I exist as a human first, as a being that experiences joy and suffering, beauty and learning, life and tragedy. I exist because the universe chose to put me here for a purpose higher than my relation to men. I exist because a wise old woman gave me a gift and now magic runs through my veins. So the problem is not my existence as half dragon, half girl/ The problem is how you perceive it as so small, you do not believe I can exist at all apart from through my bonds with men. ~ Nikita Gill

I think of the beauty in the obvious,
the way it forces us to admit how it exists,
the way it insists on being pointed out like a bloody nose,
or how every time it snows there is always someone around to say, "It's snowing."
But the obvious isn't showing off, it's only reminding us that time passes,
and that somewhere along the way we grow up.
Not perfect, but up and out.
It teaches us something about time,
that we are all ticking and tocking,
walking the fine line between days and weeks,
as if each second speaks of years,
and each month has years listening to forever but never hearing anything beyond centuries swallowed up by millenniums,
as if time was calculating the sums needed to fill the empty belly of eternity.
We so seldom understand each other.
But if understanding is neither here nor there, and the universe is infinite,
then understand that no matter where we go,
we will always be smack dab in the middle of nowhere.
All we can do is share some piece of ourselves and hope that it's remembered.
Hope that we meant something to someone.


My chest is a cannon that I have used to take aim and shoot my heart upon this world.
I love the way an uncurled fist becomes a hand again, because when I take notes,
I need it to underline the important parts of you:
happy, sad, lovely.
Battle cry ballistic like a disaster or a lipstick earthquaking a ~ Shane L. Koyczan

But the artist appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom; to that in us which is a gift and not an acquisition - and, therefore, more permanently enduring. He speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity, and beauty, and pain; to the latent feeling of fellowship with all creation - and to the subtle but invincible conviction of solidarity that knits together the loneliness of innumerable hearts, to the solidarity in dreams, in joy, in sorrow, in aspirations, in illusions, in hope, in fear, which binds men to each other, which binds together all humanity - the dead to the living and the living to the unborn. ~ Joseph Conrad

Cultivation, old civilization, beauty, history! Surprising turnings of streets, shapes of venerable cottages, lovely aged eaves, unexpected and gossamer turrets, steeples, the gloss, the antiquity! Gardens. Whoever speaks of Paris has never seen Warsaw. [ ... ] Whoever yearns for an aristocratic sensibility, let him switch on the great light of Warsaw. ~ Cynthia Ozick

Young poets are too apt to consider themselves "children of the mist" – they must dwell apart from men and contemn their kind, or they fear they shall be only taken for common-place characters. They forget that poetry is the language which speaks to all hearts - and that instead of cherishing the sacred fire as a lonely light, as one that burns in a charnel house, they should bring it forth in its beauty and brightness as a guide to the pleasant places and sparkling waters of earth's happiness and the radiant messenger of heaven's exalted hopes. And they should rejoice and be glad that to them the kindling of such high imagination is given.

~ Sarah Josepha Hale
Ladies Magazine, November 1830

From the Introduction to Cherishing the Sacred Fire ~ Deborah L. Halliday

Nefertiti Speaks:
Sands of time released my ancient image
to awaken you to the artistry and splendour
of Egypt's Camelot

No mystery am I
A modern woman trapped in an old time

Go forward beautiful ladies and create
new worlds of artistry and beauty
out of the sands of time ~ Ramon Ravenswood

To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart; -
Go forth, under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around -
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air -
Comes a still voice -
Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix for ever with the elements,
To be a brother to the insensible rock
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.
Yet not to thine etern ~ William Cullen Bryant

The voice of beauty speaks softly; it creeps only into the most fully awakened souls ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The aesthetic value of creation cannot be overlooked. Our very contact with nature has a deep restorative power; contemplation of its magnificence imparts peace and serenity. The Bible speaks again and again of the goodness and beauty of creation, which is called to glorify God. ~ Pope John Paul II

Beauty speaks to us in moments, and then we forget. ~ Bryant McGill

There is nothing more pure and beautiful than a person who always speaks truthfully with a childlike heart. ~ Suzy Kassem

The sculptor who deals with form seeks to imprison beauty in a marble statue that will withstand the ravages of time during millenniums; but a marble statue is cold and speaks to but a few of the most evolved who are able to infuse the statue with their own life. ~ Max Heindel

The artist appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom; to that in us which is a gift and not an acquisition-and therefore, more permanently enduring. He speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity, and beauty and pain. ~ Joseph Conrad

breath,
life after seven decades plus three years
is a lot of breathing. seventy three years on this
earth is a lot of taking in and giving out, is a
life of coming from somewhere and for many a bunch
of going nowhere.

how do we celebrate a poet who has created
music with words for over fifty years, who has
showered magic on her people, who has redefined
poetry into a black world exactness
thereby giving the universe an insight into
darkroads?

just say she interprets beauty and wants to
give life, say she is patient with phoniness
and doesn't mind people calling her gwen or sister.
say she sees the genius in our children, is visionary
about possibilities, sees as clearly as ray charles and
stevie wonder, hears like determined elephants looking
for food. say that her touch is fine wood, her memory
is like an african roadmap detailing adventure and
clarity, yet returning to chicago's south evans
to record the journey. say her voice is majestic
and magnetic as she speaks in poetry, rhythms, song
and spirited trumpets, say she is dark skinned,
melanin rich, small-boned, hurricane-willed,
with a mind like a tornado redefining the landscape.

life after seven decades plus three years
is a lot of breathing.
gwendolyn, gwen, sister g has
not disappointed our expectations.
in the middle
Haki R. Madhubuti

They have a complicated saying that likens snow to love."
"It speaks of the beauty and the harshness, of watching a perfect flake land on bare skin and melt away in an instant. Of the soft powder giving way underfoot and the creeping chill of ice in your bones turning your lips blue and your fingertips black. Of terrible pain and delirious joy. ~ Isabel Greenberg

The way you keep your house, the way you organize your time, the care you take in your personal appearance, the things you spend your money on, all speak loudly about what you believe. The beauty of thy peace shines forth in an ordered life. A disordered life speaks loudly of disorder in the soul. ~ Elisabeth Elliot

Men and women make their own beauty or their own ugliness. Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton speaks in one of his novels of a man "who was uglier than he had any business to be;" and, if we could but read it, every human being carries his life in his face, and is good-looking or the reverse as that life has been good or evil. On our features the fine chisels of thought and emotion are eternally at work. ~ Alexander Smith

Love is a mystery. We embrace it where we can. Mostly we do not choose whom we love. It just happens. A voice speaks to us, in ways the ears cannot hear. We recognize a beauty the eye does not see. We experience a change in our hearts that no voice can describe. ~ David Gemmell

Beauty can be consoling, disturbing, sacred, profane; it can be exhilarating, appealing, inspiring, chilling. It can affect us in an unlimited variety of ways.. Yet it is never viewed with indifference; beauty demands to be noticed; it speaks to us directly like the voice of an intimate friend. If there are people who are indifferent to beauty, then it is surely because they do not perceive ~ Roger Scruton

On the surface, ojalá translates to "hopefully" in English. But that's just on paper, merely the dictionary definition. The reality is that there are some words that defy translation; their meaning contains a whole host of things simmering beneath the surface. There's beauty contained in the word, more than the flippancy of an idle hope. It speaks to the tenor of life, the low points and the high, the sheer unpredictability of it all. And at the heart of it, the word takes everything and puts it into the hands of a higher power, acknowledging the limits of those here on earth, and the hope, the sheer hope, the kind you hitch your life to, that your deepest wish, your deepest yearning will eventually be yours. ~ Chanel Cleeton

Beauty is part of the finished language by which goodness speaks. ~ George Eliot

Love speaks of beauty only heart can see. ~ Debasish Mridha

Simplicity speaks with splendour. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

The beauty of fragrance is that it speaks to your heart and hopefully someone else's. ~ Elizabeth Taylor

As a form of body language, when the mind is receptive to the sensory experience, writing speaks the truth about all thoughts and feelings. Now I don't want to be misunderstood here because this isn't a special talent or skill. It's present in all of us. The trick is to discover it, cultivate it and translate it from an internal state to an expressive sensuality. It is truly a creative impulse that unconsciously expresses emotions and can also arouse emotion in the person reading the book. The beauty and harmony of the writer never gets old and there are as many new things to learn each day, as there are varieties of adjectives, nouns and verbs in the world. It is the ultimate way to communicate with your reader. ~ Karl Wiggins

beauty's voice speaks gently: it appeals only to the most awakened souls. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Why we write.
Because art blows life into the lifeless, death into the deathless. Because art's lie is preferable, in truth, to life's beautiful terror. Because as time does not pass (nothing, as Beckett tells us, passes) it passes the time. Because Death, our mirthless master, is somehow amused by epitaphs. Because epitaphs well struck give Death, our vorcious master, heartburn. Because fiction imitates life's beauty, thereby inventing the beauty life lacks. Because fiction is the best position, at once exotic and familiar, for fucking the world. Because fiction, mediating paradox, celebrates it. Because fiction, mothered by love, loves love as a mother might her unloving child. Because fiction speaks, hopelessly, beautifully, as the world speaks. Because God, created in the storyteller's image, can be destroyed only by its maker. Because in its perversity, art harmonizes the disharmonious, and because in its profanity, fiction sanctifies life. Because, in its terrible isolation, writing is a path to brotherhood. Because in the beginning was the gesture and in the end the come, as well in between what we have are words. Because of all arts, only fiction can unmake the myths that unman men. Because of its endearing futility, its outrageous pretentions. Because the pen, though short, casts a long shadow upon (it must be said) no surface. Because the world is reinvented every day and this is how it is done. Because there is nothing new under the sun except its expression. ~ Robert Coover

Nonfiction speaks to the head. Fiction speaks to the heart. Poetry speaks to the soul. It's the essence of beauty. The essence of pain. It pleases the eye and the ear. ~ Ellen Hopkins

The radiance of which he speaks is the scholastic quidditas, the whatness of a thing. The supreme quality is felt by the artist when the esthetic image is first conceived in his imagination. The mind in that mysterious instant Shelley likened beautifully to a fading coal. The instant wherein that supreme quality of beauty, the clear radiance of the esthetic image, is apprehended luminously by the mind which has been arrested by its wholeness and fascinated by its harmony is the luminous silent stasis of esthetic pleasure, a spiritual state very like to that cardiac condition which the Italian physiologist, Luigi Galvani, using a phrase almost as beautiful as Shelley's, called the enchantment of the heart. ~ James Joyce

His [Death] voice is cold at first, John. It seems unfeeling. But if you listen without fear, you find that when he speaks, the most ordinary words become poetry. When he stands close to you, your life becomes a song, a praise. When he touches you, your smallest talents become gold; the most ordinary loves break your heart with their beauty. ~ Martine Leavitt

The beauty of the trees, the softness of the air, the fragrance of the grass, they speak to me. The summit of the mountain, the thunder of the sky, the rhythm of the sea, speaks to me. The faintness of the stars, the freshness of the morning, the dewdrop on the flower, speaks to me. The strength of the fire, the taste of the salmon, the trail of the sun, and the life that never goes away, they speak to me. And my heart soars. ~ Chief Dan George

...When he puts a thing on a pedestal and calls it beautiful, he demands the same delight from others. He judges not merely for himself, but for all men, and then speaks of beauty as if it were the property of things. ~ Immanuel Kant

Friend, that was not well spoken; you seem like one who is reckless. So it is that the gods do not bestow graces in all ways on men, neither in stature nor yet in brains or eloquence; for there is a certain kind of man, less noted for beauty, but the god puts comeliness on his words, and they who look toward him are filled with joy at the sight, and he speaks to them without faltering in winning modesty, and shines among those who are gathered, and people look on him as on a god when he walks in the city. Another again in his appearance is like the immortals, but upon his words there is no grace distilled, as in your case the appearance is conspicuous, and not a god even would make it otherwise, and yet the mind there is worthless. ~ Homer

The beauty we love is very silent. It smiles softly to itself, but never speaks. ~ Richard Le Gallienne

Love is like magic and it always will be. For love still remains life's sweet mystery! Love works in ways that are wondrous and strange and there's nothing in life that love cannot change! Love can transform the most commonplace into beauty and splendor and sweetness and grace. Love is unselfish, understanding and kind, for it sees with its heart and not with its mind! Love is the answer that everyone seeks ... Love is the language, that every heart speaks. Love can't be bought, it is priceless and free, love, like pure magic, is life's sweet mystery! ~ Helen Steiner Rice

The arts, then, are man's difference, that which makes him to be what he is; and when he speaks through them he is using the utterance which is proper to him, as man. For, if we once set aside the "does it pay" nonsense, which is evidently nonsense and pestilent nonsense at that, we come clearly and freely to the truth that man is concerned with beauty, and with the ecstasy or rapture that proceeds from the creation of beauty and from the contemplation of it. ~ Arthur Machen