Faded Beauty Quotes

To see how pretty an old woman once was, it is not enough just to look at each feature; they must be translated. ~ Marcel Proust

She's beautiful, but it's a faded beauty now, as if she's been washed too many times. ~ Louise O'Neill

Beauty magazines make my girlfriend feel ugly. ~ James De La Vega

All Beyoncé and JLo have done is add to the laundry list of attributes women must have to qualify as beautiful. ~ Tina Fey

Truth and beauty can still win battles. We need more art, more passion, more wit in defense of the Earth. ~ David R. Brower

The canvas of your life can reflect infinite beauty depending on the colors you opt to splash on it. ~ Pooja Ruprell

We sat within the farm-house old,
Whose windows, looking o'er the bay,
Gave to the sea-breeze damp and cold,
An easy entrance, night and day.

Not far away we saw the port,
The strange, old-fashioned, silent town,
The lighthouse, the dismantled fort,
The wooden houses, quaint and brown.

We sat and talked until the night,
Descending, filled the little room;
Our faces faded from the sight,
Our voices only broke the gloom.

We spake of many a vanished scene,
Of what we once had thought and said,
And who was changed, and who was dead;

And all that fills the hearts of friends,
When first they feel, with secret pain,
Their lives thenceforth have separate ends,
And never can be one again;

The first slight swerving of the heart,
That words are powerless to express,
And leave it still unsaid in part,
Or say it in too great excess.

The very tones in why we spake,
Had something strange, I could but mark;
The leaves of memory seemed to make
A mournful rattling in the dark.

Oft died the words upon our lips,
As suddenly, from out the fire
Built of the wreck of stranded ships,
The flames would leap and then expire.

And, as their splendor flashed and failed,
We thought of wrecks upon the main,
Of ships dismasted, that were hailed
And sent no answer back again.

The w ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Damn it," the man facing her muttered. "Who are you?"
"Lady Pandora Ravenel. I'll tell them..." Her voice trailed away as she found herself looking up at an arrogant young god, tall and big framed, every line of him taut with feline grace. The tiny pendant lamp overhead sent sunstruck golden glints playing among the thick, well-cut layers of his amber hair. His eyes were winter-blue, his cheekbones high and straight, the line of his jaw hard enough to chisel marble. The full, sensuous curves of his lips lent a note of erotic dissonance to his otherwise classic features. One glance at him was enough to make her feel as if she were trying to breathe at high altitude. What would it do to a man's character to be so inhumanly beautiful? It couldn't be anything good. ~ Lisa Kleypas

And there, with their gables lifting into the sunlight above deep hedgerows beautiful with spring. He saw the cottages of earthly men. Past them he walked while the beauty of evening grew, with songs of birds, and scents wandering from flowers, and odours that deepened, and evening decked herself to receive the Evening Star. ~ Lord Dunsany

I wandered away on a glorious botanical and geological excursion, which has lasted nearly fifty years and is not yet completed, always happy and free, poor and rich, without thought of a diploma or of making a name, urged on and on through endless, inspiring Godful beauty. ~ John Muir

A small house must depend on its grouping with other houses for its beauty, and for the preservation of light air and the maximum of surrounding open space. ~ Clarence Stein

I often feel like I have this spirit living inside of me, always dressing in like short mini skirts ... but then I start to discover myself. So there are eight spirits, mischievous ones, sad ones, handsome ones, wise ones, and crazy ones. ~ Bai Ling

I wrote "Bootylicious" because, at the time, I'd gained some weight and the pressure that people put you under, the pressure to be thin, is unbelievable. I was just 18 and you shouldn't be thinking about that.You should be thinking about building up your character and having fun, and the song was just telling everyone to forget what people are saying, you're bootylicious. That's all. It's a celebration of curves and a celebration of women's bodies. ~ Beyonce Knowles

THE ROSE

TOTHE ROSE UPON THE ROOD OF TIME
Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!
Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways:
Cuchulain battling with the bitter tide;
The Druid, grey, wood-nurtured, quiet-eyed,
Who cast round Fergus dreams, and ruin untold;
And thine own sadness, where of stars, grown old
In dancing silver-sandalled on the sea,
Sing in their high and lonely melody.
Come near, that no more blinded by man's fate,
I find under the boughs of love and hate,
In all poor foolish things that live a day,
Eternal beauty wandering on her way.
Come near, come near, come near - Ah, leave me still
A little space for the rose-breath to fill!
Lest I no more bear common things that crave;
The weak worm hiding down in its small cave,
The field-mouse running by me in the grass,
And heavy mortal hopes that toil and pass;
But seek alone to hear the strange things said
By God to the bright hearts of those long dead,
And learn to chaunt a tongue men do not know.
Come near; I would, before my time to go,
Sing of old Eire and the ancient ways:
Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days.


A king is but a foolish labourer
Who wastes his blood to be another's dream. ~ W.B. Yeats

Beneath the foggy sky the glowing sea is hazy, the soft light of a scarf over a lamp. ~ Melissa Barbeau

Opportunity (from Machiavelli)

"But who art thou, with curious beauty graced,
O woman, stamped with some bright heavenly seal
Why go thy feet on wings, and in such haste?"

"I am that maid whose secret few may steal,
Called Opportunity. I hasten by
Because my feet are treading on a wheel,

Being more swift to run than birds to fly.
And rightly on my feet my wings I wear,
To blind the sight of those who track and spy;

Rightly in front I hold my scattered hair
To veil my face, and down my breast to fall,
Lest men should know my name when I am there;

And leave behind my back no wisp at all
For eager folk to clutch, what time I glide
So near, and turn, and pass beyond recall."

"Tell me; who is that Figure at thy side?"
"Penitence. Mark this well that by decree
Who lets me go must keep her for his bride.

And thou hast spent much time in talk with me
Busied with thoughts and fancies vainly grand,
Nor hast remarked, O fool, neither dost see
How lightly I have fled beneath thy hand. ~ James Elroy Flecker

Realizing that you are in love is itself a beautiful feeling ... And there is nothing like one-sided love or both-sided love. Love is simply love. Celebrate this feeling ~ Anamika Mishra

I'm not bitching."
"Yes, you are. You're bitching like a junior miss beauty queen. ~ Rick Yancey

Maybe 'cause you don't have to win a pageant to wear a crown. ~ Julie Murphy

The beauty of the human race is not in its victory over evil, but the attempt. ~ Sarah Brownlee

Not every day is beautiful. But there is beauty in every day. ~ Lynda Cheldelin Fell

This is not the way these tales end," Calliope said firmly.
"This is not the way that things end when they get to be tales," Amatus said, "but since ours is not yet told, we cannot count on it. There were a hundred dead princes on the thorns outside Sleeping Beauty's castle, and I'm sure many of them were splendid fellows. ~ John Barnes

Our hearts and minds desire clarity. We like to have a clear picture of a situation, a clear view of how things fit together, and clear insight into our own and the world's problems. But just as in nature colors and shapes mingle without clear-cut distinctions, human life doesn't offer the clarity we are looking for. The borders between love and hate, evil and good, beauty and ugliness, heroism and cowardice, care and neglect, guilt and blamelessness are mostly vague, ambiguous, and hard to discern. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

Love is the magnetic
and attracting force
between you and me
and the beauty,
and the world
and everything in it. ~ Debasish Mridha

[D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few. ~ John Adams

Her mighty lakes, like oceans of liquid silver; her mountains, with bright aerial tints; her valleys, teeming with wild fertility; her tremendous cataracts, thundering in their solitudes; her boundless plains, waving with spontaneous verdure; her broad, deep rivers, rolling in solemn silence to the ocean; her trackless forests, where vegetation puts forth all its magnificence; her skies, kindling with the magic of summer clouds and glorious sunshine - no, never need an American look beyond his own country for the sublime and beautiful of natural scenery. ~ Washington Irving

Came the visions of icy beauty,
from the land of death where they dwell.
Pursuing their prize and grisly duty,
came the thieves of the charm and spell.
The bells chimed thrice, and death came a-calling.

Alluring of shape though seldom seen,
they traveled the breeze on a spark.
some fed twigs to their newborn queen,
while others invaded the dark.
the bells chimed thrice, and death came a-calling.

some they called and others they kissed
as they traveled on river and wave.
with resolve they came and did insist:
every one touched to a grave.
the bells chimed thrice, and death came a-calling.

roving to hunt and gathering to dance,
they practiced their dark desires
by casting a hex and a beautiful trance,
before feeding the queen's new fires.
the bells chimed thrice, and death came a-calling.

till he parted the falls
and the bells chimed thrice,
till he issued the calls
and demanded the price.
the bells chimed thrice and death met the mountain.

they charmed and embraced
and they tried to extoll
but he bade them in grace
and demanded a soul.
the bells fell silent and the mountain slew them all.
and the mountain entombed them all. ~ Terry Goodkind

When assaulted by sexual knowledge for the first time, a girl plunges into a period of blackness, which is required in order to let her emotions catch up with her body.
Sleeping Beauty sleeps. Cinderella waits, and while she waits she works her way through the darkness of depression. Snow White both works and sleeps before she is ready to open her eyes and find a Prince leaning over her. ~ Joan Gould

The world's most beautiful colors are not seen by the eyes, but by the soul. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Beauty is a behavior. As is ugliness. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

appreciate the beauty of imperfection as an opportunity for growth. ~ Hector Garcia Puigcerver

To be a success, let go of the past and accept the beauty of change. ~ Debasish Mridha

Why allow all the old memories to have supremacy? Make new ones, memories of such luster and beauty that, should the old ones come back, they would be pallid and impotent in comparison. ~ Sherry Thomas

Already it is twilight down in the Laredito. Bats fly forth from their roostings in courthouse and tower and circle the quarter. The air is full of the smell of burning charcoal. Children and dogs squat by the mud stoops and gamecocks flap and settle in the branches of the fruit trees. They go afoot, these comrades, down along a bare adobe wall. Band music carries dimly from the square. They pass a watercart in the street and they pass a hole in the wall where by the light of a small forgefire an old man beats out shapes of metal. They pass in a doorway a young girl whose beauty becomes the flowers about.

They arrive at last before a wooden door. It is hinged into a larger door or gate and all must step over the foot-high sill where a thousand boots have scuffled away the wood, where fools in their hundreds have tripped or fallen or tottered drunkenly into the street. They pass along a ramada in a courtyard by an old grape arbor where small fowl nod in the dusk among the gnarled and barren vines and they enter a cantina where the lamps are lit and they cross stooping under a low beam to a bar and belly up one two three.

There is an old disordered Mennonite in this place and he turns to study them. A thin man in a leather weskit, a black and straightbrim hat set square on his head, a thin rim of whiskers. The recruits order glasses of whiskey and drink them down and order more. There are monte games at tables by the wall and there are whores at another ~ Cormac McCarthy

In a sport like this - hard work, not much glory, but still popular in every century - well, there must be some beauty which ordinary men can't see, but extraordinary men do. - George Yeoman Pocock ~ Daniel James Brown

No one can depict desolation who hasn't inhabited desolation and observed it very closely. Things condemned have a terrible beauty. ~ Tove Jansson