Beauty

Oompa oompa oompa oompa. Beautiful. Just beautiful.
~ William James "Count" Basie, in Good Morning Blues: The Autobiography of Count Basie (1985).

The essence of beauty is ... the instinctive perception of goodness.
~ William Bellars, The Fine Arts And Their Uses (1876). Part I. Principles. Chapter III: Beauty and Sublimity

Art can never exist without Naked Beauty display'd.
~ William Blake, The Laocoön (c. 1818).

Every line is the line of beauty; it is only fumble and bungle which cannot draw a line; this only is ugliness.
~ William Blake, from The Rossetti Manuscript (c. 1793-1811). Public Address, intended to accompany the engraving of the Canterbury Pilgrims (c.1810)

Exuberance is beauty.
~ William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-93). Proverbs of Hell

Passion and expression are beauty itself.
~ William Blake, in The Life of William Blake (1863). Notes on Reynolds' Discourses (written c. 1798-1808; aka Annotations to The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds).

To the Eyes of a Miser a Guinea is more beautiful than the Sun & a bag worn with the use of Money has more beautiful proportions than a Vine filled with Grapes.
~ William Blake, in The Letters of William Blake (1956). Letter to the Reverend John Trusler (23 August 1799)

A girl with a pretty knee can grin and bare it.
~ Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, (October 1922).

A very beautiful woman hardly ever leaves a clear-cut impression of features and shape in the memory: usually there remains only an aura of living colour.
~ William Bolitho

Art is bringing democracy face to face with beauty, and beauty knows neither race, caste nor sex. The social vision of art is complete. And its light is ever shinning upon the luminous figure of Democracy, the ideal Mother of human hopes, the hopes of the rejected, of the denied, of the subjected individual.
~ William Stanley Braithwaite, The Crisis (August 1915). Democracy and Art

Oh, give me power to teach
The wonder of thy speech,
And give thy heavenly message to our day:
For the barren hearts of men have need
Of the humane influence of thy creed.
~ William Stanley Braithwaite, from The House of Falling Leaves: With Other Poems (1908). To Beauty

Gaze on them, till the tears shall dim thy sight,
But keep that earlier, wilder image bright.
~ William Cullen Bryant, To Cole, the Painter, Departing for Europe

All that is beautiful shall abide,
All that is base shall die.
~ Robert Williams Buchanan, Balder the Beautiful (1877).

It seems no work of man's creative hand
By labor wrought as wavering fancy planned,
But from the rock as if by magic grown,
Eternal, silent, beautiful, alone!
~ John William Burgon, Petra (Newdigate Prize Poem, 1845).

Beauty can never die.
~ William Henry Burleigh, from Poems (1841). Beauty

Tranced in a sweet delirium of feeling!
~ William Henry Burleigh, from Poems (1841). Miscellaneous Sonnets. XXXI: Orat Illa

Yet calm as heaven's serenest deeps
Are those pure eyes, those glances pure;
And queenly is the state she keeps,
In beauty's lofty trust secure.
~ William Allen Butler, Incognita of Raphael

Born of the blended voices
Of wind and sun and rain,
This is the law of being
That links the threefold chain:
The life we give to beauty
Returns to us again.
~ (William) Bliss Carman, from April Airs: A Book of New England Lyrics (1916). Earth Voices, IV

The eternal slaves of beauty
Are the masters of the world.
~ (William) Bliss Carman, from Songs from Vagabondia (1894). A Captain of the Press-Gang

Beauty is an all-pervading presence. It unfolds to the numberless flowers of the Spring; it waves in the branches of the trees and in the green blades of grass; it haunts the depths of the earth and the sea, and gleams out in the hues of the shell and the precious stone. And not only these minute objects, but the ocean, the mountains, the clouds, the heavens, the stars, the rising and the setting sun all overflow with beauty. The universe is its temple; and those people who are alive to it can not lift their eyes without feeling themselves encompassed with it on every side.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), Address Introductory to the Franklin Lectures, Boston MA (September 1838). On Self-Culture

[B]eauty is the lover's gift.
~ William Congreve, The Way of the World (1700). Act II, scene v

There is in true beauty, as in courage, somewhat which narrow souls cannot dare to admire.
~ William Congreve, The Old Bachelor (1693). Act IV, scene ii

All beauteous things for which we live
By laws of time and space decay.
But oh, the very reason why
I clasp them, is because they die.
~ William Johnson (Cory), Ionica (1858). Mimnermus in Church

It isn't a matter of black is beautiful as much as it is white is not all that's beautiful.
~ Bill Cosby

Scenes must be beautiful, which daily viewed
Please daily, and whose novelty survives
Long knowledge and the scrutiny of years.
~ William Cowper, The Task (1785). Book I. The Sofa

Your Beauty, ripe, and calm, and fresh,
As Eastern Summers are,
Must now, forsaking Time and Flesh,
Add light to some small Star.
~ Sir William Davenant, The Philosopher and the Lover; To a Mistress Dying

As long as I love Beauty I am young.
~ William Henry (W.H.) Davies, from Songs of Joy: And Others (1911). Seeking Beauty

Yes, I am indeed beautiful! Sometimes I sit and wonder ... why it is that I am so much more attractive than anybody else in the whole world. Can this be vanity? No! Nature is lovely and rejoices in her loveliness. I am a child of Nature ...
~ William Schwenck (W.S.) Gilbert, The Mikado (1885 opera).

Yes, I am the Apostle of Simplicity.
~ William Schwenck (W.S.) Gilbert, Patience: Or, Bunthorne's Bride (1881 opera).

The question simply is, What is that quality in objects, which particularly marks them as picturesque?
~ (Reverend) William Gilpin, from Three Essays: On Picturesque Beauty; On Picturesque Travel; and On Sketching Landscape (1792). Essay I

Grace has been defined as the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul.
~ William Hazlitt, from The Round Table, Vol. I (1817). On Manner

The ideal, in a word, is the height of the pleasing, that which satisfies and accords with the inmost longing of the soul: the picturesque is merely a sharper and bolder impression of reality.
~ William Hazlitt, Table-Talk, or Original Essays on Men and Manners, 2nd series (1824). On the Picturesque and Ideal

Beauty is merely the Spiritual making itself known sensuously.
~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (G.W.F.) Hegel, The Philosophy of Religion (1827).

I thought this was the most beautiful spot in the world, and now I know it.
~ William Paton (W.P.) Ker (of the Italian Alps; 1923)

What was Paradise? But a Garden and Orchard of trees and hearbs, full of all pleasure? and nothing there but delights.
~ William Lawson, A New Orchard and Garden (1597).

And the spirit of beauty floats everywhere --
Sweet my lady, awake!
~ William Leighton, in Poems by the Late William Leighton (1870). Awake

Beauty wins all my worship.
~ William Leighton, in Poems by the Late William Leighton (1870). Beauty

Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose: you can smell it and that is all.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, Cakes and Ale (1930).

The ideal has many names, and beauty is but one of them.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, Cakes and Ale (1930).

She must be very purty. Th' whole column is wheezin' at her.
~ William H. (Bill) Mauldin, Up Front (1945).

Straight is the line of duty;
Curved is the line of beauty;
Follow the straight line, thou shalt see
The curved line ever follow thee.
~ William McCall

Beauty, which is what is meant by art, using the word in its widest sense, is, I contend, no mere accident to human life, which people can take or leave as they choose, but a positive necessity of life, if we are to live as nature meant us to; that is, unless we are content to be less than men.
~ William Morris, from Hopes and Fears for Art (1882). The Beauty of Life (Lecture delivered before the Birmingham Society of Arts and School of Design; February 19, 1880)

After all, what would be "beautiful" if the contradiction had not first become conscious of itself, if the ugly had not first said to itself: "I am ugly"?
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals (1887).

I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Gay Science (1882).

Nothing is beautiful, only man: on this piece of naïvety rests all aesthetics, it is the first truth of aesthetics. Let us immediately add its second: nothing is ugly but degenerate man -- the domain of aesthetic judgment is therewith defined.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Only as an aesthetic phenomenon is the world justified.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

The beauty of nature, like every other kind of beauty, is quite jealous; it demands that one serve it alone.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Letter to Heinrich Köselitz (23 June 1881).

Great wide, beautiful, wonderful world,
With the wonderful waters round you curled,
And the wonderful grass upon your breast,
World, you are beautifully drest.
~ William Brighty Rands, from Lilliput Lectures (1871). Great, Wide, Beautiful, Wonderful World

Our hearts were drunk with a beauty
Our eyes could never see.
~ George William (A.E.) Russell, Collected Poems by A.E. (1913). The Unknown God

Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye.
~ William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost. Act II, scene i

Beauty itself doth of itself persuade
The eyes of men without an orator.
~ William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece

[B]eauty lives with kindness.
~ William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act IV, scene ii

Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.
~ William Shakespeare, As You Like It. Act I, scene iii

Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good.
~ William Shakespeare, from The Passionate Pilgrim, Poem XIII (1599).

Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.
~ William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Could I come near your beauty with my nails
I'd set my ten commandments in your face.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry VI, Part II

Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight,
For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.
~ William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet. Act I, scene v

He hath a daily beauty in his life.
~ William Shakespeare, Othello. Act V, scene i

If I could write the Beauty of your Eyes,
And in fresh Numbers number all your Graces,
The Age to Come would say "This Poet lies:
Such Heav'nly Touches ne'er touched Earthly Faces."
~ William Shakespeare, Sonnet 17

[I]n the holiday time of my beauty.
~ William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act II, scene i

O! how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give.
~ William Shakespeare, Sonnet 54

The fairest hand I ever touch'd! O beauty,
Till now I never knew thee!
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry VIII. Act I, scene iv

To me, fair friend, you never can be old
For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
Such seems your beauty still.
~ William Shakespeare, Sonnet 104

The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne
Burn'd on the water; the stern was beaten gold,
Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that
The winds were lovesick with them; the oars were silver.
~ William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Act II, scene ii

Was this fair face the cause, quoth she,
Why the Grecians sacked Troy?
~ William Shakespeare, All's Well that Ends Well. Act I, scene iii

When in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,
Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have express'd
Even such a beauty as you master now.
~ William Shakespeare, Sonnet 106

Offensive objects, at a proper distance, acquire even a degree of beauty.
~ William Shenstone, in Works in Verse and Prose, Vol. II (1764). Essays on Men, Manners, and Things. Unconnected Thoughts on Gardening

He who weeps for beauty gone
Stoops to pluck a flower of stone.
~ William Soutar, He Who Weeps For Beauty Gone

'Tis hard with respect to Beauty, that its possessor should not have even a life-enjoyment of it, but be compelled to resign it after, at the most, some forty years' lease.
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, The Virginians (1857-59). Chapter 73

The most beautiful thing in the world is a ballpark filled with people.
~ Bill Veeck (recalled on his death), in The New York Times (4 January 1986).

Dominant over all other beauty is moral beauty.
~ William Hayes Ward, Address before the N.Y. Congregational Club (1886). Elements of True Poetry

The beautiful has its place in mathematics as elsewhere.
~ William Frank (F.) White, from A Scrap-Book Of Elementary Mathematics (1908). The Movement To Make Mathematics Teaching More Concrete

Come, cuddle your head on my shoulder, dear,
Your head like the golden-rod,
And we will go sailing away from here
To the beautiful land of Nod.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from Poems of Passion (1883). The Beautiful Land of Nod

Remember this, Bill, if your brain can remember. Everyone needs! One beautiful thing! In the course of a lifetime! ... Without one beautiful thing in the course of a lifetime, it's all a death-time.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, Confessional (1967).

[A] masterpiece is only a mark to surpass. The processes of art, to keep alive, must always challenge the unknown and go where the most uncertainty lies. So that beauty, when it is found, as it rarely is, shall have a touch of the marvelous about it, the unknown. If it were not so, it would be the end of beauty. Masterpieces are only beautiful in a tragic sense, like a starfish lying stretched dead on the beach in the sun.
~ William Carlos Williams, from Selected Essays (1954). Preface

It is beauty itself
that lives
day by day in them
idly --
This is
the power of their faces.
~ William Carlos Williams, from Spring and All (1923). The Crowd at the Ball Game

Every bit of beauty destroyed enhances the value of what is left to us and makes it still more imperative that the remaining loveliness should be preserved.
~ (Bertram) Clough Williams-Ellis, On Trust for the Nation, Volume I (1947).

In his instinctive effort to possess beauty, man invariably destroys it -- for is not all beauty ever elusive?
~ Henry William Williamson, from The Lone Swallows (1922). London Children and Wild Flowers

But beauty itself is not given to us by anyone; it is a power we have within us from the gate, a radiance inside us.
~ Marianne Williamson, A Woman's Worth (1993).

The welfare of the future lies in the worship of Beauty.
~ William Winter, from Gray Days and Gold (1891). Preface

Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty.
~ William Wordsworth, Lines Composed upon Westminster Bridge (Sept. 3, 1802).

Magnificent
The morning rose, in memorable pomp,
Glorious as e'er I had beheld.
~ William Wordsworth, The Prelude (1850 edition). Book IV: Summer Vacation

True beauty dwells in deep retreats,
Whose veil is unremoved
Till heart with heart in concord beats,
And the lover is beloved.
~ William Wordsworth, To -- (1824)

A beauty masked, like the sun in eclipse, gathers together more gazers than if it shined out.
~ William Wycherley, The Country Wife (1673). Act III, scene i

Because of that great nobleness of hers
The fire that stirs about her, when she stirs,
Burns but more clearly.
~ William Butler Yeats, from In The Seven Woods (1904). The Folly Of Being Comforted

I feel about me and in me an impulse to create form, to carry the realisation of beauty as far as possible.
~ William Butler Yeats, Letter to George William Russell (A.E.) (14 May 1903).

I find under the boughs of love and hate,
In all poor foolish things that live a day,
Eternal Beauty wandering on her way.
~ William Butler Yeats, from The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics (1892). To the Rose upon the Rood of Time

I heard the old, old men say,
"All that's beautiful drifts away
Like the waters."
~ William Butler Yeats, from In The Seven Woods (1904). The Old Men Admiring Themselves In The Water

May she be granted beauty and yet not
Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught,
Or hers before a looking-glass, for such,
Being made beautiful overmuch,
Consider beauty a sufficient end,
Lose natural kindness and maybe
The heart-revealing intimacy
That chooses right, and never find a friend.
~ William Butler Yeats, from Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921). A Prayer for My Daughter (June 1919).

No expectation fails there,
No pleasing habit ends,
No man grows old, no girl grows cold,
But friends walk by friends.
~ William Butler Yeats, from Last Poems (1936-39). John Kinsella's Lament for Mrs Mary Moore

Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?
~ William Butler Yeats, from The Rose (1893). The Rose of the World

Yet is not ecstasy some fulfillment of the soul in itself, some slow or sudden expansion of it like an overflowing well? Is not this what is meant by beauty?
~ William Butler Yeats, from The Autobiography of William Butler Yeats (1935).