Beauty

For he who would proceed aright in this manner should begin in youth to visit beautiful forms; and first, if he be guided by his instructor aright, to love one such form only – out of that he should create fair thoughts; and soon he will of himself perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to the beauty of another and that beauty in every form is one and the same.

Plato; quoted by Rollo May in The Courage to Create

Beauty

The beautiful is that kind of good in which the soul rests without possession.

St. Thomas Aquinas; quoted by
Paul Tillich: History of Christian Thought

Beauty

Charles Kingsley, in his last illness, was overheard saying to himself:

“How beautiful God is.
I love all beauteous things,
I seek and adore them.
God hath no better praise
And man in his hasty days
Is honoured for them.”

Robert Bridges

Beauty

If I give you a rose, you cannot doubt God any more.

Tertullian

Beauty

Beauty, so old, so new. Too late I love thee.

St. Augustine

Beauty

Beauty is a token fallen from Heaven to Earth in order to remind us of the ideal world.

Henri Frederic Amiel: Journal

Beauty

I heard a hospital chairman say: ‘I’ve seen a patient’s life on the wobble, when bacteriology could do no more, and help came from a bowl of roses,’ That bowl of roses was symbolic. It represented those tender graces, those healing kindnesses, which mean so much to those that are ill and in pain.

Philip Inman: No Going Back

Beauty

One becomes amazingly receptive after two years' dearth of the pure elements of Earth. What it means to have around the hills and meadows, fields and forests, after prison grills and walls; the scent of flowers instead of smoke and steam from damp clothing; bird chorus instead of the grind of machinery day and night – that cannot be put into words.

From pamphlet In Prison - Yet Free by Eva Herman,
a Quaker imprisoned 1943-45 by Nazis for befriending Jews.

Beauty

Never lose an opportunity to see anything beautiful. Beauty is God’s handwriting.

Charles Kingsley

Beauty

Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

Wordsworth: Intimations of Immortality

Beauty

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams and health and quiet dreaming.

Keats: Endymion

Beauty

Beauty is truth, truth beauty – that is all
Ye know on earth and all ye need to know.

Keats: Ode on a Grecian Urn