Quotes & Sayings About My Own Beauty

My Heart Is a Holy Place

My heart is a holy place
Wiser and holier than I know it to be
Wiser than my lips can speak
A spring of mystery and grace.
You have created my heart
And have filled it with things of wonder.
You have sculpted it, shaped it with your hands
Touched it with your breath.
In its own season it reveals itself to me.
It shows me rivers of gold
Flowing in elegance
And hidden paths of infinite beauty.
You touch me with your stillness as I await its time.
You have made it a dwelling place of richness and intricacies
Of wisdom beyond my understanding
Of grace and mysteries, from your hands. — Patricia Van Ness

I prayed hard and only gradually became aware that this fierce praying was a way of finding prologue and entrance into my own writing. This came as both astonishment and relief. When I thought God had abandoned me, I discovered that He had simply given me a different voice to praise the inexhaustible beauty of the made world. — Pat Conroy

Believe nothing of me
except that I felt your beauty
more closely than my own. — Leonard Cohen

It feels a little silly to annotate a game in which I didn't make a single move on my own, just following my preparation all the way. [ ... ] A pretty finale. I was obviously hoping for the beauty prize sacrificing both my rooks and all, but OK, Im [sic] afraid requirements are one makes a move of his own for that it seems. Something I could avoid doing in the last five rounds in Dresden. Silly game, this chess. — Jan Gustafsson

I was going to fight to keep the elusive Horde King as my own. Every beauty needed a beast, and he was mine. — Amelia Hutchins

More than once, the broken moon would cast through the window a silver light and remind me of independent events yielding to their own momentum and interacting under natural laws while my mind would impose happiness, grief, beauty, ruin, justice and chaos. — Leonard Seet

In a weird way, that's the beauty of being an actor. You get to live out things that you're afraid of, and you get to say, 'Well, maybe I can get to the end of it and survive it intact and I can be the hero of my own story.' It's kind of a way of exorcising fear. — Jodie Foster

She was looking into my eyes with that way she had of looking that made you wonder whether she really saw out of her own eyes. They would look on and on after every one else's eyes in the world would have stopped looking. She looked as though there were nothing on earth she would not look at like that, and really she was afraid of so many things. — Ernest Hemingway,

I see the beauty of the world through your eyes. I can't see it through my own. — Chani Lynn Feener

I fought angrily against seeing particular types of poetic organization because it seemed awful to see my own life and these actual events in that way. But when you put forth an intention into the universe to speak a certain truth and narrate a certain period of your life, you start to see the sorts of symmetries that you are not usually supposed to be able to see until you are on your deathbed and your life flashes before your eyes. And you see exactly why everything happened. And even the most painful things you've ever been through can seem unbearably beautiful. — Joanna Newsom

I have the honour to be quite of your Lordship's opinion," said Mr. Lovel, looking maliciously at Mrs. Selwyn, "for I have an insuperable aversion to strength, either of body or mind, in a female."
"Faith, and so have I," said Mr. Coverley; "for egad I'd as soon see a woman chop wood, as hear her chop logic."
"So would every man in his senses," said Lord Merton; "for a woman wants nothing to recommend her but beauty and good nature; in every thing else she is either impertinent or unnatural. For my part, deuce take me if ever I wish to hear a word of sense from a woman as long as I live!"
"It has always been agreed," said Mrs. Selwyn, looking round her with the utmost contempt, "that no man ought to be connected with a woman whose understanding is superior to his own. Now I very much fear, that to accommodate all this good company, according to such a rule, would be utterly impracticable, unless we should chuse subjects from Swift's hospital of idiots. — Fanny Burney

At an early age I discovered the beauty in pictures in 'Vogue' magazine and Ebony magazine, and I would read 'The New York Times.' I had to make my own world within my world because I was an only child. — Andre Leon Talley

Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,
Which I gaze on so fondly to-day,
Were to change by to-morrow, and fleet in my arms,
Live fairy-gifts fading away,
Thou wouldst still be adored, as this moment thou art,
Let thy loveliness fade as it will,
And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart
Would entwine itself verdantly still.
It is not while beauty and youth are thine own,
And thy cheeks unprofaned by a tear,
That the fervor and faith of a soul may be known,
To which time will but make thee more dear!
No, the heart that has truly loved never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close,
As the sunflower turns on her god when he sets
The same look which she turned when he rose! — Thomas Moore

For a split second today I could smell home. It smelled like sunset on a dirt road. I thought my heart was going to break. The world I left behind was so close I could almost touch it. Everything in me cried out for it. It's amazing how certain shades of agony have their own beauty. I can't ever seem to make myself believe that the home I once knew doesn't even exist anymore. It's still too real inside my head. I wish I had a handful of dust from back then, so that I could keep it in a bottle and always have it near. — Damien Echols

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '97:
Wear sunscreen.
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.
Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.
Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday. — Mary Schmich

The beauty of this idea is that my decision to keep Peeta alive at the expense of my own life is itself an act of defiance. A refusal to play the Hunger Games by the Capitol's rules. My private agenda dovetails completely with my public one. And if I really could save Peeta ... in terms of a revolution, this would be ideal. Because I will be more valuable dead. They can turn me into some kind of martyr for the cause and paint my face on banners, and it will do more to rally people than anything I could do if I was living. But Peeta would be more valuable alive, and tragic, because he will be able to turn his pain into words that will transform people. — Suzanne Collins

When it comes to my own makeup, I like to look fresh, clean, and well-rested-nothing too crazy. My mother really introduced me to beauty. She's obsessed with all of the magazines' 'best of' lists, like the ones in Allure, Glamour, and InStyle. Her beauty cabinet looks like one of those annual lists. She got me into finding staples, and as much as I love going to Neiman Marcus to just play around, generally, when I find something that I like, I stick with it for years. — Phoebe Tonkin

Why,' I said, quite surprised by my own eloquence in inventing all this stuff, 'it happens every day. The old old story. Boys and girls fall in love, that is, they are driven mad and go blind and deaf and see each other not as human animals with comic noses and bandy legs and voices like frogs, but as angels so full of shining goodness that like hollow turnips with candles put into them, they seem miracles of beauty. And the next minute the candles shoot out sparks and burn their eyes. And they seem to each other like devils, full of spite and cruelty. And they will drive each other mad unless they have grown some imagination. Even enough to laugh. — Joyce Cary

I see I have this patience to wait it out, and the truth is no matter how dark I feel I would never take my own life, because when the darkness is over, then what a blessing is the feeblest ray of light! — Valerie Martin

Perhaps it's my destiny to remain a book-keeper for ever and for poetry and literature to remain simply butterflies that alight on my head and merely underline my own ridiculousness by their very beauty. — Fernando Pessoa

Sonnet XXV
Before I loved you, love, nothing was my own:
I wavered through the streets, among
Objects:
Nothing mattered or had a name:
The world was made of air, which waited.
I knew rooms full of ashes,
Tunnels where the moon lived,
Rough warehouses that growled 'get lost',
Questions that insisted in the sand.
Everything was empty, dead, mute,
Fallen abandoned, and decayed:
Inconceivably alien, it all
Belonged to someone else - to no one:
Till your beauty and your poverty
Filled the autumn plentiful with gifts. — Pablo Neruda

I want to let [my photographs] be something that comes from the model in her own way. I don't want to take the models too much out of their own skin. I realized that I wanted to create a marriage between who the person was, the nature, the beauty in the figure, and how the models sat or posed themselves. — Mario Sorrenti

I tremble because of the sufferings of those persecuted in different lands. I tremble thinking about the eternal destiny of their torturers. I tremble for Western Christians who don't help their persecuted brethren. In the depth of my heart, I would like to keep the beauty of my own vineyard and not be involved in such a huge fight. I would like so much to be somewhere in quietness and rest. But it is not possible ... The quietness and rest for which I long would be an escape from reality and dangerous for my soul ... The West sleeps and must be awakened to see the plight of the captive nations. — Richard Wurmbrand

But I loved Narcissus because as he lay on my banks and looked down at me, in the mirror of his eyes I saw ever my own beauty mirrored. — Oscar Wilde

Anyone can take a picture of poverty; it's easy to focus on the dirt and hurt of the poor. It's much harder - and much more needful - to pry under that dirt and reveal the beauty and dignity of people that, but for their birth into a place and circumstance different from our own, are just like ourselves. I want my images to tell the story of those people and to move us beyond pity to justice and mercy. — David DuChemin

You act as if I were your enemy.
"You are my enemy. You seek to end the things I love."
And is an ending always bad? it asked. Must not all things, even worlds, someday end?
"There is no need to hasten that end," Vin said. "No reason to force it."
All things are subject to their own nature, Vin, Ruin said, seeming to flow around her. She could feel its touch on her - wet and delicate, like mist. You cannot blame me for what I am. Without me, nothing would end. Nothing could end. And therefore, nothing could grow. I am life. Would you fight life itself?
Vin fell silent.
Do not mourn because the day of this world's end has arrived, Ruin said. That end was ordained the very day of the world's conception. There is a beauty in death - the beauty of finality, the beauty of completion.
For nothing is truly complete until the day it is finally destroyed. — Brandon Sanderson

But you must not think I have not cultivated courage as well - one needs a deal of it to live in this world - courage to brook the sneers of my own peers, courage to dare to be different from my class, courage to dream...for this new age, to fling beauty toward the stars! — Eloise Lownsbery

My mother never put an emphasis on looks. She let us grow up on our own time line. She never forced any beauty regimen into my world. — Rachel McAdams

Tell me, now, fairy as you are, - can't you give me a charm, or a philter, or something of that sort, to make me a handsome man?"
It would be past the power of magic, sir;" and, in thought, I added,"a loving eye is all the charm needed: to such you are handsome enough; or rather, your sternness has a power beyond beauty." Mr. Rochester had sometimes read my unspoken thoughts with an acumen to me incomprehensible: in the presnt instance he took no notice of my abrupt vocal response; but he smiled at me with a certain smile he had of his own, and which he used but on rare occasions. He seemed to think too good for common purpose: it was the real sunshine of feeling-he shed it over me now. — Charlotte Bronte

I'm a beauty guru, I just love all of that stuff. We have a makeup artist for 'Dance Moms' that touches us up and stuff, but I love doing my own makeup; sometimes I do my friends', too. My favorite is doing eye shadow and eyeliner. — Maddie Ziegler

When these kinds of things happen in my life, things that are so clearly filled with more beauty or redemption or reconciliation than my cranky personality and stony heart could ever manufacture on their own, I just have no other explanation than this: God. Nadia Bolz-Weber — Nadia Bolz-Weber

For you, and for any dear to you, I would do anything. If my career were of that better kind that there was any opportunity or capacity of sacrifice in it, I would embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you. Try to hold me in your mind, at some quiet times, as ardent and sincere in this one thing. The time will come, the time will not be long in coming, when new ties will be formed about you
ties that will bind you yet more tenderly and strongly to the home you so adorn
the dearest ties that will ever grace and gladden you. O Miss Manette, when the little picture of a happy father's face looks up in yours, when you see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you! — Charles Dickens

It suddenly hit me - it was nearly impossible to take good care of something I hated. I'd spent so long hating my body that I didn't know how to respect and nurture myself or my body. By focusing so much on my exterior, I also robbed myself of the opportunity to feel good about myself and my body, simply because I didn't meet a cultural standard of beauty that is obsessed with thinness. That created stress that interfered with my weight loss and with my own happiness. — Jessica Ortner

I came across a wild flower, marveled at its beauty and at the perfection of all its parts, and exclaimed: 'But all this in you and in thousands like you blossoms and fades; it is not noticed by anyone and in fact is often not even seen by any one.' But the flower replied: 'You fool! Do you imagine I blossom in order to be seen? I blossom for my own sake because it pleases me, and not for the sake of others; my joy and delight consist in my being and in my blossoming. — Arthur Schopenhauer

I feel sometimes constrained by the expectation that the work should be solely political. I try to create a type of work that is at the service of my own set of criteria, which have to do with beauty and a type of utopia that in some ways speaks to the culture I'm located in. — Kehinde Wiley

My own beauty routine is influenced pretty heavily from my 'Mad Men' routine. If I'm in the series of work, it's hard to see myself without eyelashes every day. — Jessica Pare

[The Neon Demon] was more my own fascination with beauty. It's my children's fascination beauty. — Nicolas Winding Refn

Rise to the occasion, my daughter. Never let anyone tell you that you lack courage or conviction to see your tasks done. The only opinion that really matters is your own, and you are a creature of absolute beauty and strength, through and through. Never, ever forget that.
So in the midst of the storm, stand proud against it, lift up your middle finger, and defy the fates with everything you have. If they want to fight, bring it. You have more than enough intelligence and skill to battle them until they beg you for mercy. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

saw my sweetheart wandering about the house; he had taken a rebec and was playing a melody.
With a plectrum like fire he was playing a sweet melody, drunken and dissolute and charming from the Magian wine.
He was invoking the saqi in the air of Iraq2 ; the wine was his object, the saqi was his excuse.
The moonfaced saqi pitcher in his hand, entered from a corner and set it in the middle.
He filled the first cup with that flaming wine; did you ever see water sending out flames?
He set it on his hand for the sake of the lovers, then prostrated and kissed the threshold.
My sweetheart seized it from him and quaffed the wine; flames from that wine went running over his face.
He was beholding his own beauty, and saying to the evil eye, "Never has there been, nor shall there come in this age, another like me. — Jalaluddin Rumi

I loved the sensual pleasures of being outside, the smell of it, the feel of the earth under my fingers, the satisfaction of seeing things living, glowing, captivated by their own temporary beauty. — Jojo Moyes

I feel free. Like some whimsical child in an enchanted forest, I feel free.
Amazed at the power of the colors that surround me, I feel free. The cool water that quenches my thirst also warms my skin as I bathe, my pores opening to the pleasure of the clear pools embracing my soul. The colors reflect on the mirrored glass that supports me. I can see beauty all around. Here I float, effortlessly, and here I will remain.
I feel free. I make my commitments and my agreements in complete liberation. I love freely, openly, within the bounds of my own moral compass. I give, and I take, learning to do each with equal excitement, with equal vigor.
The odd thing about receiving is how hard it can be. Yet, we owe it to those we love, who love us back, to do just that. Then, we can explore the vibrant colors of our enchanted forests together, and bathe one another in the refreshing springs of nature's own charity.
I love, and therefore am safe in all things. — Tom Grasso

Oh, had I, weak and faint of speech, words to teach my fellow-creatures the beauty and capabilities of man's mind; could I, or could one more fortunate, breathe the magic word which would reveal to all the power, which we all possess, to turn evil to good, foul to fair; then vice and pain would desert the new-born world!

It is not thus: the wise have taught, the good suffered for us; we are still the same; and still our own bitter experience and heart-breaking regrets teach us to sympathize too feelingly with a tale like this. — Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

The Beauty of It If all I have is Now, where will I look for Joy? Without hope for the future, without hope that things will change, with no hope of finding what's been lost, and no hope of restoring the past, with only the risk to crack open all that has hardened about me, what will I do with what I have? At first, this might seem scary or sad, but as a tired swimmer comes ashore surprised to find pearls washing through his legs, I lift my tired head again and again to find all I need is right where I am. But being human, I stray and dream of lives other than my own, and soon I am busy wanting something else, somewhere else, someone else; busy imagining something just out of reach to strive for. It leads me to say if you are unhappy or in pain, nothing will remove these surfaces. But acceptance and a strong heart will crack them like a shell, exposing a softness that has always been, exposing a soft thing waiting to take form. It glows. I think it is the one spirit we all share. — Mark Nepo

But what does he want my heart for?" the little queen asked.
"He just wants to own it," replied the sea lion. "That is enough. He wants to look on its beauty and know that his hands alone can touch it. — Antonia Michaelis

The lake was silent for some time. Finally, it said:
I weep for Narcissus, but I never noticed that Narcissus was beautiful. I weep because, each time he knelt beside my banks, I could see, in the depths of his eyes, my own beauty reflected. — Paulo Coelho

This is going to make such a great story: How I nursed a pirate back to health and my love saved him," Miss Ohio said with a contented sigh. "And then we can have our own reality show about our relationship."
- "Beauty Queens — Libba Bray

I weep for Narcissus, but I never noticed that he was beautiful. I weep for him because whenever he lay on my banks and looked into my waters, I could see my own beauty reflected in his eyes. — Paulo Coelho

It is my opinion that religious experience may be a unique combination of Child (a feeling of intimacy) and Adult (a reflection on ultimacy) with the total exclusion of the Parent. I believe the total exclusion of the Parent is what happens in kenosis, or self-emptying. . . . I believe that what is emptied is the Parent. How can one experience joy, or ecstasy, in the presence of those recordings in the Parent with produced NOT OK originally? How can I feel acceptance in the presence of the earliest felt rejection? It is true that Mother was a participant in intimacy in the beginning, but it was an intimacy which did not last, was conditional, and was "never enough." I believe the Adult's function in the religious experience is to block out the Parent in order that the Natural Child may reawaken to its own worth and beauty as a part of God's creation. — Thomas A. Harris

Everyone longs to be free. Freedom is our essential nature, so my ultimate prayer is that the world is set free to experience the truth and the beauty of our own being. — Brandon Bays

It is too often the quality of happiness that you feel at every moment its fragility, while depression seems when you are in it to be a state that will never pass. Even if you accept that moods change, that whatever you feel today will be different tomorrow, you cannot relax into happiness like you can into sadness. For me, sadness has always been and still is a more powerful feeling; and if that is not a universal experience, perhaps it is the base from which depression grows. I hated being depressed, but it was also in depression that I learned my own acreage, the full extent of my soul. When I am happy, I feel slightly distracted by happiness, as though it fails to use some part of my mind and brain that wants the exercise. Depression is something to do. My grasp tightens and becomes acute in moments of loss: I can see the beauty of glass objects fully at the moment when they slip from my hand toward the floor — Andrew Solomon

In my 20s, as I began to travel in Europe, I found comfort in religious paintings. Even though my own belief in Catholic dogma had been shaken and weakened, I found that the beauty and the richness of the art still held me. — Colm Toibin

The universe created me to see its own beauty through my eyes. — Debasish Mridha

Music gives me a sense of self-sufficiency and nourishment. I don't need anyone or anything. I bathe in it as in amniotic fluid; it surrounds and protects me. It's also stable, ever-available and something I can control - that is, I can reach for it whenever I want. I can also choose music that reflects my mood, or if I want, helps to soothe it ... music-seeking offers excitement and tension that I can immediately resolve and a reward I can immediately attain - unlike other tensions in my life and other desired rewards. Music is a source of beauty and meaning outside myself that I can claim as my own without exploring how, in my life, I keep from directly experiencing those qualities. Addiction, in this sense, is the lazy man's path to transcendence. — Gabor Mate

Cameron Diaz is probably my biggest beauty mentor of my friends. She knows how to do her own hair and makeup; she's really good at it. — Gwyneth Paltrow

It was beautiful not despite but because of the friction it has had to endure. It had been thrashed around, but instead of being destroyed, it was improved with every scratch and scrape, sculpted. In fact, the scuffs themselves are what gave it its quiet splendor; they are responsible for turning a simple piece of glass (which could have just as easily been trash) into a gem. It wouldn't be the same without the wear and tear; it wouldn't be something pretty enough to be turned into jewelry if it hadn't been damn near broken. I closed my fist around this tear-shaped gem and thought about my own uneven edges, my own abrasions, and things I have endured that have, instead of breaking me, completed me, prepared me for the next tumble. Its odd beauty was hard-won. It came from reinventing itself. From having risen to the top of the discard pile. Like a phoenix, from victim to victor. (325) — Wendy Blackburn

Piano keys jangled as he got to his feet. "Our own Sleeping Beauty. Who finally kissed you awake?" "Nobody. I woke up on my own." "Was there anyone with you? — Cassandra Clare

After the feet of beauty fly my own. — Edna St. Vincent Millay

We have reason. It is the entire meaning and purpose of Shangri-La. It came to me in a vision long, long ago. I foresaw a time when man exalting in the technique of murder, would rage so hotly over the world, that every book, every treasure would be doomed to destruction. This vision was so vivid and so moving that I determined to gather together all things of beauty and culture that I could and preserve them here against the doom toward which the world is rushing. Look at the world today. Is there anything more pitiful? What madness there is! What blindness! A scurrying mass of bewildered humanity crashing headlong against each other. The time must come, my friend, when brutality and the lust for power must perish by its own sword. For when that day comes, the world must begin to look for a new life. And it is our hope that they may find it here. — James Hilton

I am not a religious man. I have not attended a service for many years. But I do believe in God. My own practice of religion, you could say, it a nonpractice. I personally feel that it's just as worthy on a weekend to rake the lawns of an elderly neighbor or to climb a mountain and marvel at the beauty of this land we live in as it is to sing hosannas or go to Mass. In other words, I think every many finds his own church- and not all of them have four walls - Judge Haig (Page 399) — Jodi Picoult

Riding my motorcycle around L.A. is like my own video game. But unlike many folks at the wheel, I am occupied with getting where I'm going and keeping myself safe. Most people are applying makeup, texting, and checking out the beauty in the next car. — Hugh Laurie

I've been able to dig deeper into awareness of my own sinfulness, and take baby steps toward spiritual healing. I'm able to worship in an ancient communion full of awesome beauty, one that is now being blessed with quiet revival. — Frederica Mathewes-Green

My parents often remind my brothers and me that they won't have any money for us to inherit, but I think they've already passed on to us the wealth of their memories, allowing us to grasp the beauty of a flowering wisteria, the delicacy of a word, the power of wonder. Even more, they've given us feet for walking to our dreams, to infinity. Which may be enough baggage to continue our journey on our own. Otherwise, we would pointlessly clutter our path with possessions to transport, to insure, to take care of. — Kim Thuy

I can worship Nature, and that fulfills my need for miracles and beauty. Art gives a spiritual depth to existence
I can find worlds bigger and deeper than my own in music, paintings, and books. And from my friends and family I receive the highest benediction, emotional contact, and personal affirmation. I can bow before the works of Man, from buildings to babies, and that fulfills my need for wonder. I can believe in the sanctity of Life, and that becomes the Revealed Word, to live my life as I believe it should be, not as I'm told to by self-appointed guides. — Neil Peart

I cling to the beauty and strength of nature and all wild creatures with a passion born of certainty that only through them can i retain my perspective about life and my own part in it. — Virginia McKenna

My mom believed that you make your own luck. Over the stove she had hung these old, maroon painted letters that spell out, "MANIFEST." The idea being if you thought and dreamed about the way you wanted your life to be
if you just envisioned it long enough, it would come into being.
But as hard as I had manifested Astrid Heyman with her hand in mine, her blue eyes gazing into mine, her lips whispering something wild and funny and outrageous in my ear, she had remained totally unaware of my existence. Truly, to even dream of dreaming about Astrid, for a guy like me, in my relatively low position on the social ladder of Cheyenne Mountain High, was idiotic. And with her a senior and me a junior? Forget it.
Astrid was just lit up with beauty: shining blonde ringlets, June sky blue eyes, slightly furrowed brow, always biting back a smile, champion diver on the swim team. Olympic level.
Hell, Astrid was Olympic level in every possible way. — Emmy Laybourne

I do not run from beauty, my own or anyone else's. If it is a gift, I claim it and I use it. And if it is a curse, well...I claim it and use it." Victoria da Vinci — Austin Scott Collins

I love, I love beauty
and in it I worship my follies,
the ones I found on my own,
and the ones to which I was led — Adonis

I am left to wonder, will anyone else see it?
That day in the forest when I looked upon the marble bear, alive with the setting sun, what did I witness? Was it only sunlight on stone, or Father's spirit, or a reflection of my own?
It seems to me now that such a moment requires a kind of trinity: you and I and the thing itself. — Eowyn Ivey

With heart at rest I climbed the citadel's
Steep height, and saw the city as from a tower,
Hospital, brothel, prison, and such hells,
Where evil comes up softly like a flower.
Thou knowest, O Satan, patron of my pain,
Not for vain tears I went up at that hour;
But like an old sad faithful lecher, fain
To drink delight of that enormous trull
Whose hellish beauty makes me young again.
Whether thou sleep, with heavy vapors full,
Sodden with day, or, new appareled, stand
In gold-laced veils of evening beautiful,
I love thee, infamous city! Harlots and
Hunted have pleasures of their own to give,
The vulgar herd can never understand. — Charles Baudelaire

I don't shout the loudest, and I'm quite shy, which was why I was reluctant to throw myself into the public eye. I love beauty, craftsmanship, storytelling and romance, and I probably don't have the armor to survive the relentless competition that exists in this particular world. But I have my own toughness. — Sarah Burton

Oh, my. The Marques of Jonesborough requests that I join him for a ride in his phaeton this afternoon; only he fears my beauty will blind his horses." The end of the sentence was swallowed by Alex's own disbelieving giggle. "Surely he can't think I would take that seriously. — Sarah MacLean

-I don't know that thin and pretty is what Nat is supposed to be, though. Does that make any sense?"
If she'd been holding on to any illusions about how much she liked Vince Grasso-not lusted for him, which she also did-that last speech would have cinched it. "It makes perfect sense. She's beautiful in her own way, but pretty is something ... else. And I've had friends who were really pretty-it didn't always help them all that much.'
"Yeah," he said. "My wife was pretty, and she was miserable her whole life. I just want my girls to be happy. Be themselves, you know, whatever it is. — Barbara O'Neal

My mother is a big believer in being responsible for your own happiness. She always talked about finding joy in small moments and insisted that we stop and take in the beauty of an ordinary day. When I stop the car to make my kids really see a sunset, I hear my mother's voice and smile. — Jennifer Garner

Today I am unafraid of lifting up my voice, calling it my own and discovering its infinite beauty. — Shauntay Grant

All my heroines, yes, even the Little Mermaid, even poor, dull, listless Sleeping Beauty, have given me this sense of possibility. They made me feel I wasn't forced to live out the story my family wanted for me, that I wasn't doomed to plod forward to a fate predetermined by God, that I didn't need to be defined by my seizures, or trapped in fictions of my own making, or shaped by other people's stories. That I wanted to write my own life. — Samantha Ellis

For this will cure him that is sick, and rouse him that is in dumps; one that has loved, it will remember of it; one that has not, it will instruct. For there was never any yet that wholly could escape love, and never shall there be any, never so long as beauty shall be, never so long as eyes can see. But help me that God to write the passions of others; and while I write, keep me in my own right wits. — Longus

The truth of the matter was something much more subtle and tremendous than any plain physical miracle could ever be. But never mind that. The important thing was that, when I did see the stars (riotously darting in all directions according to the caprice of their own wild natures, yet in every movement confirming the law), the whole tangled horror that had tormented me finally presented itself to me in its truth and beautiful shape. And I knew that the first, blind stage of my childhood had ended. — Olaf Stapledon

You're like the sun-completely blind to your own beauty because you are so busy making everyone around you shine. No matter how far we hide in the shadows, you share your light. That's how you stole my heart when no one else could find it. — Lexi Ryan

She is both my madness and my sanity.

She is the calm quiet eye of my storm.

She is the whisper in the maddening din.

She is a rare mix of dirty mind, exquisite beauty, curves that make your hands ache, deep heart and mischief that you want for your own.

She is peace in the shape of a woman. — Kirk Diedrich

And thus, lost in her own thoughts,she let Bacchus do whatever he wished & she only sat up when he accidentally pressed too hard on her tender flesh."Oh! Sorry! I was only admiring the beauty of Nature!" Bacchus said when he noticed her grinning at him. "Let me wash myself first,Sir,if you wish to taste my Nectar,"she suggested.[MMT] — Nicholas Chong

Rome is not outside me, but inside me.. Her feverish sweetness, her tragic countryside, her own beauty and harmony, all these are mine, for my thought and my work. — Amedeo Modigliani

Floating in the void free of gravity I made my way along the side of the ship. I listened to my own breaths. It was so dark and I was so weightless that I had to look for my bubbles to be sure which way was up. I swam backward a little away from the boat and into outer space and waved my arm through the water. Sure enough the phosphorescents appeared trailing my movement like the tail of a shooting star. I let myself tip upside down and floated there watching the gentle snowstorm marveling that a world of such strangeness existed here all the time just under the surface. — Elisabeth Eaves

Rain
Soft rain, summer rain
Whispers from bushes, whispers from trees.
Oh, how lovely and full of blessing
To dream and be satisfied.
I was so long in the outer brightness,
I am not used to this upheaval:
Being at home in my own soul,
Never to be led elsewhere.
I want nothing, I long for nothing,
I hum gently the sounds of childhood,
And I reach home astounded
In the warm beauty of dreams.
Heart, how torn you are,
How blessed to plow down blindly,
To think nothing, to know nothing,
Only to breathe, only to feel. — Hermann Hesse

From the place by the railing at the edge of the tracks on the summer evening I return across the city to my own room. I am vividly aware of my own life that escaped the winter on the boat. How many such lives I have lived. Then I only made a dollar and a half a day and now I sometimes make more than that in a few minutes. How wonderful to be able to write words ... Again I begin the endless game of reconstructing my own life, jerking it out of the shell that dies, striving to breathe into it beauty and meaning ... I wonder why my life, why all lives, are not more beautiful. — Sherwood Anderson

I'm still trying to find the words to heal you,
To take your pain and make it all my own
So your beautiful eyes can smile,
So you can be at peace.
And now that Fate has intervened,
Conspired to draw us together,
I can't resist the lure of your eyes,
The temptation of you beauty,
The siren song of you voice
Whispering my name
In the dark comfort between my sheets.
I can't resist you, baby,
Because I'm falling still,
I'm falling into you. — Jasinda Wilder

French Kiss - A Love Letter to Paris, is a tribute to many of the wonderful moments of romance, beauty, hope, and love that I have witnessed and been inspired by in Paris, my adopted home, over the past 40 years. I believe that photography is ultimately about sharing. I am excited to share, with the world, these moments of the heart that have touched my own, in this most beautiful city, Paris — Peter Turnley

Breastfeeding is a beautiful thing, one of the most beautiful things that exist in nature. Think about how a woman can literally feed her baby with her body! In my eyes, this is a certain form of beauty, of divinity! To know that my body can not only form and bring another human being into the world, but that I can actually feed babies with my own milk from my own breasts - that puts me in a state of awe each time I think about it. It is an honour to be a woman. — C. JoyBell C.

I have two definitions for the word "magick." The first is knowing that I can effect change through my own will, even behind these bars; and the other meaning is more experiential - seeing beauty for a moment in the midst of the mundane. — Damien Echols

My bathroom is filled with hair and makeup stuff and I play with it all the time. What the real lesson is, is that you can own your own sense of beauty. It doesn't have to be something you get from somewhere else. — Tracee Ellis Ross

But, had I a place to new fashion, I should not put myself into the hands of an improver. I would rather have an inferior degree of beauty, of my own choice, and acquired progressively. I would rather abide by my own blunders than by his. — Jane Austen

I swear to use my scientific knowledge for the good of Humanity. I promise never to harm any person in my search for enlightenment.

I shall be courageous and careful in my quest for greater knowledge about the mysteries that surround us. I shall not use scientific knowledge for my own personal gain or give it to those who seek to destroy the wonderful planet on which we live.

If I break this oath, may the beauty and wonder of the Universe forever remain hidden from me. — Stephen Hawking

When I was four years old, my father, who was a colonel in the army, was stationed in Salzburg, Austria. Across the street from our house was an ancient castle on a cliff. So when I first heard fairy tales, I felt as if the magic of 'Cinderella' or 'Sleeping Beauty' was taking place right in my own neighborhood. — Mary Pope Osborne

On the warm stone walls, climbing roses were just coming into bloom and great twisted branches of honeysuckle and clematis wrestled each other as they tumbled up and over the top of the wall. Against another wall were white apple blossoms on branches cut into sharp crucifixes and forced to lie flat against the stone. Below, the huge frilled lips of giant tulips in shades of white and cream nodded in their beds. They were almost finished now, spread open too far, splayed, exposing obscene black centers. I've never had my own garden but I suddenly recognized something in the tangle of this one that wasn't beauty. Passion, maybe. And something else. Rage. — Meg Rosoff

There's nothing in this courtyard, after all, that wasn't here in 1977; maybe it's not this year but that one, and everything that follows is still to come ... For if the evidence points to anything, it's that there is no one unitary City. Or if there is, it's the sum of thousands of variations, all jockeying for the same spot. This may be wishful thinking; still, I can't help imagining that the points of contact between this place and my own lost city healed incompletely, left the scars I'm feeling for when I send my head up the fire escapes and toward the blue square of freedom beyond. And you out there: Aren't you somehow right here with me? I mean, who doesn't still dream of a world other than this one? Who among us--if it means letting go of the insanity, the mystery, the totally useless beauty of the million once-possible New Yorks--is ready even now to give up hope? — Garth Risk Hallberg

Live in the space between chaos and shape. I walk the line that continually threatens to lose its tautness under me, dropping me into the dark pit where there is no meaning. At other times the line is so wired that it lights up the soles of my feet, gradually my whole body, until I am my own beacon, and I see then the beauty of newly created worlds, a form that is not random. A new beginning. — Jeanette Winterson

Picture to yourself the most beautiful girl imaginable! She was so beautiful that there would be no point, in view of my meagre talent for storytelling, in even trying to put her beauty into words. That would far exceed my capabilities, so I'll refrain from mentioning whether she was a blonde or a brunette or a redhead, or whether her hair was long or short or curly or smooth as silk. I shall also refrain from the usual comparisons where her complexion was concerned, for instance milk, velvet, satin, peaches and cream, honey or ivory, Instead, I shall leave it entirely up to your imagination to fill in this blank with your own ideal of feminine beauty. — Walter Moers

What I saw there explained everything
the reason he had stayed away, why he had come to say good-bye. I can only describe what I saw by its effect on me. Every woman should be looked at in such a way, at least once her life. With a longing that cannot be contained
with love that goes beyond mere feeling because it transforms and-like the verse of the poem he had read
it dissolves, as an offering, a gift. I felt my face flush and waves of knowing suffused every pore, every cell of my being. I was loved. And in that love, I felt beauty
my own, unrealized until that moment, suddenly rising to consciousness in a way that made everything in me come alive to the beauty all around me. Nothing more needed to be said. — Nafisa Haji

Some people believe that there is no distinction between the spiritual and physical universes, no distinction between the inner and the outer, between the subjective and the objective, between the miraculous and the rational. I need such distinctions to make sense of my spiritual and scientific lives. For me, there is room for both a spiritual universe and a physical universe, just as there is room for both religion and science. Each universe has its own power. Each has its own beauty, and mystery. — Alan Lightman

If I envy someone's looks I am denying my own beauty. If I envy their possessions I'm denying my own abundance, my ability to attract or create whatever I truly desire. — David Mezzapelle

I have forged many things that I believe to be things of great beauty. Yet if God is not a part of them, they are entirely counterfeit and I have been robbed blind by the work of my own hands. — Craig D. Lounsbrough