Quotes About Beauty

Yet even Christians who are dismissive of art continue to use it. Doing so is inescapable. Every time we build a sanctuary, arrange furniture in a room, or produce a brochure, we are making artistic decisions. Even if we are not artists in our primary vocation, there is an inescapably artistic aspect to our daily experience.

four fundamental principles for a Christian theology of the arts: (1) the artist's call and gift come from God; (2) God loves all kinds of art; (3) God maintains high standards for goodness, truth, and beauty; and (4) art is for the glory of God.

Artists sometimes talk about art for art's sake. What they mean is that art has intrinsic worth: it has value in and of itself, apart from any utility. This needs to be said because there are always some people who wonder why we need art, on the assumption that in order to be a legitimate calling it must perform some practical function. But since God has made us to enjoy beauty, art itself is able to nourish our souls.

But if religion is more than the attainment of power and privilege, if it is the doorway into beauty and mystery and meaning, then not only is divinity unnecessary but it is an impediment, for it implies that enlightenment is beyond the reach of mortals.

There is a certain transcendent joy in creating a thing of beauty. But even more fulfilling is to become a being of beauty.

One of the endlessly alluring aspects of mathematics is that its thorniest paradoxes have a way of blooming into beautiful theories.

I love night more than day--she is so lovely; But I love night the most because she brings My love to me in dreams which scarcely lie

There are whole veins of diamonds in thine eyes, Might furnish crowns for all the Queens of earth.

Surely the stars are images of love.

The stars, Which stand as thick as dewdrops on the fields Of heaven.

Music lives within thy lips Like a nightingale in roses.

Art is a man's nature; nature is God's art.

acts. Looking at Noreen, you wondered why anyone ever bothered to draw or paint anything else but a woman's naked body.

There's only one thing that unnerves me more than the company of an ugly woman in the evening, and that's the company of the same ugly woman the following morning.

And the case of butterflies so rich it looks As if all summer settled there and died.

I think that at the bottom of all art lies the impulse to preserve.

They say eyes clear with age, As dew clarifies air To sharpen evenings, As if time put an edge Round the last shape of things To show them there; The many-levelled trees, The long soft tides of grass Wrinkling away the gold Wind-ridden waves- all these, They say, come back to focus As we grow old. - Long Sight In Age

And you are pieced together bit by bit Set against the evening Lovely and glowing, like a chain of gold. — Philip Larkin, from "(A Study in Light and Dark)," The Complete Poems of Philip Larkin , ed. Archie Burnett (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2012)

Now I think poetry will save nothing from oblivion, but I keep writing about the ordinary because for me it's the home of the extraordinary, the only home.

Now I think poetry will save nothing from oblivion, but I keep writing about the ordinary because for me it's the home of the extraordinary, the only home.

Don't scorn your life just because it's not dramatic, or it's impoverished, or it looks dull, or it's workaday. Don't scorn it. It is where poetry is taking place if you've got the sensitivity to see it, if your eyes are open." --Philip Levine, describing what he learned from William Carlos Williams, via NPR

I'm trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief... I'm not in the business of offending people. I find the books upholding certain values that I think are important, such as life is immensely valuable and this world is an extraordinarily beautiful place. We should do what we can to increase the amount of wisdom in the world. [Washington Post interview, 19 February 2001]

We feel cold, but we don't mind it, because we will not come to harm. And if we wrapped up against the cold, we wouldn't feel other things, like the bright tingle of the stars, or the music of the Aurora, or best of all the silky feeling of moonlight on our skin. It's worth being cold for that.

I'm trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief... I'm not in the business of offending people. I find the books upholding certain values that I think are important, such as life is immensely valuable and this world is an extraordinarily beautiful place. We should do what we can to increase the amount of wisdom in the world. [ Washington Post interview, 19 February 2001 ]