Famous Quotes & Sayings

Wendell Berry

Can we actually suppose that we are wasting, polluting, and making ugly this beautiful land for the sake of patriotism and the love of God? Perhaps some of us would like to think so, but in fact this destruction is taking place because we have allowed ourselves to believe, and to live, a mated pair of economic lies: that nothing has a value that is not assigned to it by the market; and that the economic life of our communities can safely be handed over to the great corporations.

Wendell Berry

They learned to have a very high opinion of God and a very low opinion of His works—although they could tell you that this world had been made by God Himself. What they didn’t see was that it is beautiful, and that some of the greatest beauties are the briefest.

Wendell Berry

To work without pleasure or affection, to make a product that is not both useful and beautiful, is to dishonor God, nature, the thing that is made, and whomever it is made for.

Walter Pater

One of the most beautiful passages of Rousseau is that in the sixth book of Confessions, where he describes the awakening in him of the literary sense. Of such wisdom, the poetic passion, the desire of beauty, the love of art for its own sake, has most.

Walter Pater

What is important, then, is not that the critic should possess a correct abstract definition of beauty for the intellect, but a certain kind of temperament, the power of being deeply moved by the presence of beautiful objects.

Walter Mosley

That's how powerful you are, girl...You pretty, but pretty alone is not what people see. You the kinda pretty, the kinda beauty, that's like a mirror. Men and women see themselves in you, only now they so beautiful that they can't bear to see you go.

W. Somerset Maugham

But there are people who take salt with their coffee. They say it gives a tang, a savour, which is peculiar and fascinating. In the same way there are certain places, surrounded by a halo of romance, to which the inevitable disillusionment you experience on seeing them gives a singular spice. You had expected something wholly beautiful and you get an impression which is infinitely more complicated than any that beauty can give you. It is the weakness in the character of a great man which may make him less admirable but certainly more interesting. Nothing had prepared me for Honolulu...

W. Somerset Maugham

Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art. ~Waddington

W. Somerset Maugham

The ballet. I saw in the fugitive beauty of a dancer's gesture a symbol of life. It was achieved at the cost of unending effort but, with all the forces of gravity against it, a fleeting poise in mid-air, a lovely attitude worthy to be made immortal in a bas-relief, it was lost as soon as it was gained and there remained no more than the memory of an exquisite emotion. So life, lived variously and largely, becomes a work of art only when brought to its beautiful conclusion and is reduced to nothingness in the moment when it arrives at perfection.

W. Somerset Maugham

We do not write as we want, but as we can.

W. Somerset Maugham

But Philip was impatient with himself; he called to mind his idea of the pattern of life: the unhappiness he had suffered was no more than part of a decoration which was elaborate and beautiful; he told himself strenuously that he must accept with gaiety everything, dreariness and excitement, pleasure and pain, because it added to the richness of the design.

W. Somerset Maugham

We are like people living in a country whose language they know so little that, with all manner of beautiful and profound things to say, they are condemned to the banalities of the conversation manual. Their brain is seething with ideas, and they can only tell you that the umbrella of the gardener's aunt is in the house.

W. Somerset Maugham

It was such a beautiful day I decided to stay in bed.

W. Somerset Maugham

People talk of beauty lightly, and having no feeling for words, they use that one carelessly, so that it loses its force; and the thing it stands for, sharing its name with a hundred trivial objects, is deprived of dignity. They call beautiful a dress, a dog, a sermon; and when they are face to face with Beauty cannot recognise it.

W. Somerset Maugham

Marco Polo tells the tale of The Old Man in the Mountains and how he recruits new members to his Band of Assassins by means of drugs, beautiful women, lush gardens, and religious promises. The unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones.

W. Somerset Maugham

She’s wonderful. Tell her I’ve never seen such beautiful hands. I wonder what she sees in you.” Waddington, smiling, translated the question. “She says I’m good.” “As if a woman ever loved a man for his virtue,” Kitty mocked.

W. Somerset Maugham

The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety.

Vladimir Nabokov

but that mimosa grove - the haze of stars, the tingle, the flame, the honey-dew, and the ache remained with me, and that little girl with her seaside limbs and ardent tongue haunted me ever since." "this then is my story. i have reread it. it has bits of marrow sticking to it, and blood, and beautiful bright-green flies. at this or that twist of it i feel my slippery self eluding me, gliding into deeper and darker waters than i care to probe.

Vladimir Nabokov

Was she really beautiful? Was she at least what they call attractive? She was exasperation, she was torture.

Yoko Ono

We're growing up together, the human race. And we've discovered a lot of things that we didn't know. We're finding our way. Instead of thinking about doomsday all the time, think about how beautiful the world is. We're all together, and together we're getting wiser.

Yoko Ono

Tell the Earth how much you care, how beautiful she is, and how much you love her. Ask for her forgiveness for having been so careless.

Yoko Ono

Dance in your dream. Go out into the street and hug everyone you meet. Tell them how beautiful they are. Dance together.

Yoko Ono

What a beautiful future it will be! Don't worry about life being boring. It will never be.

Yoko Ono

Look at yourself in the mirror and don't be afraid to notice how beautiful you are.

Yoko Ono

You are beautiful. Don't ever think you are not. It may be such a compliment that does not come from a man too often. They are shy, proud, and rude. Give yourself some love. And walk as what you are - a beautiful woman. All your life.

Yoko Ono

Don't ever give up on life. Life can be so beautiful, especially after you've spent a lot of time with it.

Yoko Ono

To have a relationship that is pure and passionate and beautiful - I think people are scared of having that now. Especially guys.

Yoko Ono

I'm a politician. Politics is just a convenience for our life and we just have to create a beautiful world together that would be very convenient for us and just enjoyable.

Yoko Ono

I often wish my mother had died so that at least I could get some people's sympathy. But there she was, a perfectly beautiful mother.

Yoko Ono

There's a long life ahead of you and it's going to be beautiful, as long as you keep loving and hugging each other.

Yoko Ono

We are all dreamers creating the next world, the next beautiful world for ourselves and for our children.

Yang Liwei

The scenery was very beautiful. But I did not see The Great Wall [of China].

Yancy Butler

A comic can be aesthetically beautiful. I think they captured it beautifully and accurately.