Clever Beauty Quotes & Sayings

Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose, she read, and so reading she was ascending, she felt, on to the top, on to the summit. How satisfying! How restful! All the odds and ends of the day stuck to this magnet; her mind felt swept, felt clean. And then there it was, suddenly entire; she held it in her hands, beautiful and reasonable, clear and complete, here
the sonnet.
But she was becoming conscious of her husband looking at her. He was smiling at her, quizzically, as if he were ridiculing her gently for being asleep in broad daylight, but at the same time he was thinking, Go on reading. You don't look sad now, he thought. And he wondered what she was reading, and exaggerated her ignorance, her simplicity, for he liked to think that she was not clever, not book-learned at all. He wondered if she understood what she was reading. Probably not, he thought. She was astonishingly beautiful. Her beauty seemed to him, if that were possible, to increase. — Virginia Woolf

What good is it if they miss your face but not your mind? — Crystal Woods

While some dismiss the Bible as a dusty old book, I view its pages as portals to adventure. Not only is the book chock-full of clever plots and compelling stories, but it's laced with historical insights and literary beauty. When I open the Scripture, I imagine myself exploring an ancient kingdom ... With every encounter, I learn something new about their life journeys and am reminded that the Bible is more than a record of the human quest for God: it's the revelation of God's quest for us. - Scouting the Divine — Margaret Feinberg

To be beautiful, handsome, means that you possess a power which makes all smile upon and welcome you; that everybody is impressed in your favor and inclined to be of your opinion; that you have only to pass through a street or to show yourself at a balcony to make friends and to win mistresses from among those who look upon you. What a splendid, what a magnificent gift is that which spares you the need to be amiable in order to be loved, which relieves you of the need of being clever and ready to serve, which you must be if ugly, and enables you to dispense with the innumerable moral qualities which you must possess in order to make up for the lack of personal beauty. — Theophile Gautier

Whenever I see the alcove of a tastefully built Japanese room, I marvel at our comprehension of the secrets of shadows, our sensitive use of shadow and light. For the beauty of the alcove is not the work of some clever device. An empty space is marked off with plain wood and plain walls, so that the light drawn into its forms dim shadows within emptiness. There is nothing more. And yet, when we gaze into the darkness that gathers behind the crossbeam, around the flower vase, beneath the shelves, though we know perfectly well it is mere shadow, we are overcome with the feeling that in this small corner of the atmosphere there reigns complete and utter silence; that here in the darkness immutable tranquility holds sway. — Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

The old family carriage and the two lady's maids were there,
as necessaries of life; but London society was not within her reach. It was therefore the case that they had not heard very much about Lizzie Eustace. But they had heard something. "I hope she won't be too fond of going out," said Amelia, the second girl.
"Or extravagant," said Georgina, the third.
"There was some story of her being terribly in debt when she married Sir Florian Eustace," said Diana, the fourth.
"Frederic will be sure to see to that," said Augusta, the eldest.
"She is very beautiful," said Lydia, the fifth.
"And clever," said Cecilia, the sixth.
"Beauty and cleverness won't make a good wife," said Amelia, who was the wise one of the family.
"Frederic will be sure to see that she doesn't go wrong," said Augusta who was not wise. — Anthony Trollope

In a problem, the great thing is the challenge. A problem can be challenging for many reasons: because the subject matter is intriguing, because the answer defies unsophisticated intuition, because it illustrates an important principle, because of its vast generality, because of its difficulty, because of a clever solution, or even because of the simplicity or beauty of the answer. — Frederick Mosteller

Which would you rather be if you had the choice
divinely beautiful or dazzlingly clever or angelically good? — L.M. Montgomery

Its humble beginnings are that of a parasite, growing in something that is alive, draining its host of beauty. It's clever - the plight of the splinter. A sort of rags to riches story. — Tarryn Fisher

Ah, how lucky are the lieutenants, the six-foot Junkers, and all the rest of the Don Juan clan! ... The bookworm, be he ever so decent and clever, is really only pleasing to himself and a small handful of others. The world passes him by and beckons to life and beauty ... to gay and handsome creatures to whom the hearts of their fellow men continue to turn. — Theodor Fontane

I do like beauty, but an older woman can be beautiful and a clever woman is beautiful because that beauty shines through. — Patrick Demarchelier

Fate does not invite ugly boring people to save the world; and if you do try to save the world (without being beautiful, strong, clever, or wise), you will soon die pointlessly and how much adventure is there in that? — James Alan Gardner

Daddy thinks that Mama is everything a woman should be: beautiful, clever, charming. Beauty has a way of making the bad things tolerable. When Mama tilts her green eyes at you, it's hard to remember why you were mad in the first place. — Jenny Han

Aelin swiped up the emeralds in a hand, picking them over as she glanced at Rowan beneath her lashes. "She must be a rare, staggering beauty to make you so faithful."

Gods save them all. He could have sworn Fenrys coughed behind him.

Aelin chucked the emeralds into the metal dish as if they were bits of copper, their plunking the only sound. "She must be clever" - plunk - "and fascinating" - plunk - "and very, very talented." Plunk, plunk, plunk went the emeralds. She examined the four gems remaining in her hands. "She must be the most wonderful person who ever existed. — Sarah J. Maas

She would not say of any one in the world that they were this or were that. She felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged. She sliced like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside, looking on. She had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, far out to the sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day. Not that she thought herself clever, or much out of the ordinary. How she had got through life on the few twigs of knowledge Fraulein Daniels gave them she could not think. She knew nothing; no language, no history; she scarcely read a book now, except memoirs in bed; and yet to her it was absolutely absorbing; all this; the cabs passing; and she would not say of Peter, she would not say of herself, I am this, I am that. — Virginia Woolf

If this were a proper world, beautiful faces would belong to beautiful people. Good people with kind hearts and clever minds would always have bright eyes and dazzling smiles, and bad people would have scraggly hair and warty noses. That way if you saw one of them coming, you could cross to the other side of the street and avoid them altogether.
But this is not a proper world. In our world, many bad people look quite nice, and many good people are not beautiful at all. Many good people aren't pretty or cute or even interesting-looking. — Brit Trogen

Caring means cultivating the skills of an active listener. That is easier said than done, as an anecdote about the extraordinary social skills of British politicianBenjamin Disraeli and his rival William Gladstone illustrates ... The rivalry between the two statesmen piqued the curiosity of American Jennie Jerome, admired beauty and the mother of Winston Churchill. Ms. Jerome arranged to dine with Gladstone and then with Disraeli, on consecutive evenings. Afterward, she described the difference between the two men this way: "When I left the dining room after sitting next to Gladstone, I thought he was the cleverest man in England. But when I sat next to Disraeli, I left feeling that I was the cleverest woman. — Marian Deegan

Beauty is something that is hard to debate. Every man thinks his ideal the best. But the wittiest woman rise to the top of this structure, conventional beauty often taking a back seat to a woman possessed of a clever tongue. — Anne Mallory

With her enchanting songs, her rare beauty, and clever tricks, this wild 'wanderess' ensnared my soul like a gypsy-thief, and led me foolish and blind to where you find me now. The first time I saw her, fires were alight. It was a spicy night in Barcelona. The air was fragrant and free. — Roman Payne