Quotes & Sayings About Sheer Beauty

All health, beauty, intelligence, and social grace has been teased from a vast butcher's yard of unbounded carnage, requiring incalculable eons of massacre to draw forth even the subtlest of advantages. This is not only a matter of the bloody grinding mills of selection, either, but also of the innumerable mutational abominations thrown up by the madness of chance, as it pursues its directionless path to some negligible preservable trait, and then - still further - of the unavowable horrors that 'fitness' (or sheer survival) itself predominantly entails. We are a minuscule sample of agonized matter, comprising genetic survival monsters, fished from a cosmic ocean of vile mutants, by a pitiless killing machine of infinite appetite. (This is still, perhaps, to put an irresponsibly positive spin on the story, but it should suffice for our purposes here.) — Nick Land

As always, just the sight of him gave her a quick inner jolt. His face was like a painting, a depiction in perfect oils of some fallen angel. The sheer beauty of it, framed by all that rich black hair, was forever a surprise to her. — J.D. Robb

Nothing you'll read as breaking news will ever hold a candle to the sheer beauty of settled science. Textbook science has carefully phrased explanations for new students, math derived step by step, plenty of experiments as illustration, and test problems. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

If sinners were so unhappy, why would they prefer their suffering? But now I knew why. Without my wounds, who was I? My scars were my face, my past was my life. It wasn't like I didn't know where all this remembering got you, all that hunger for beauty and astonishing cruelty and ever-present loss. But I knew I would never go to Bill with a troubling personal matter, a boy who liked me too much, a teacher who scolded unfairly. I had already seen more of the world, its beauty and misery and sheer surprise, than they could hope or fear to perceive. — Janet Fitch

I'm interested in the sheer fascination of beauty - beauty is fascinating. — Chantal Joffe

What happened to your lip?" Ravenna said to him. "It looks sore."
Miss Feather's fingers darted to her mouth.
"Thank you for your kind concern, Miss Caulfield." His eyes were very dark blue and still rimmed with the longest lashed Ravenna had ever seen on a man. Beauty and virility and confidence and sheer privileged arrogance combined to remarkable effect. No wonder these silly girls stared. "It was bitten," he said.
"Oh, dear." Lady Penelope pouted sweetly. "That must have been alarming."
"Not terribly. I have been bitten by cats before." The corner of his mouth twitched. "This one," he said, turning his dark, laughing gaze upon Ravenna, "was otherwise charming."

-Ravenna, Vitor, & Lady Penelope — Katharine Ashe

It is a disgrace to grow old through sheer carelessness before seeing what manner of man you may become by developing your bodily strength and beauty to their highest limit. — Socrates

It's the simple truth that mortal men cannot understand why the gods shape events as they do. Why some men and women are cut off in fullest flower, while others live to dwindle into shadows of themselves. Why virtue must sometimes be trampled and evil flourish amidst the beauty of a country garden. Why chance, sheer random chance, plays such an overwhelming role in the life lines and fate lines of men. — Guy Gavriel Kay

The twenty-seventh was Blackstar, or simply (the symbol of blackstar) - a suggestion that the A-Z was over, but there was more to come, beyond the known alphabet, beyond ordinary language; a second set of letters, communications, a rebirth. Inside the A to Z, and all the possible combinations of songs, styles, secrets, themes, discoveries, redirections, emotional climaxes, sheer drama, tension, relief, beauty, there was all you needed to know in order to construct and understand the language of Bowie
(re morley's alphabet of bowie albums) — Paul Morley

Yet even so, Jon Snow was not sorry he had come. There were wonders here as well. He had seen sunlight flashing on icy thin waterfalls as they plunged over the lips of sheer stone cliffs, and a mountain meadow full of autumn wildflowers, blue coldsnaps and bright scarlet frostfires and stands of piper's grass in russet and gold. He had peered down ravines so deep and black they seemed certain to end in some hell, and he had ridden his garron over a wind-eaten bridge of natural stone with nothing but sky to either side. Eagles nested in the heights and came down to hunt the valleys, circling effortlessly on great blue-grey wings that seemed almost part of the sky. — George R R Martin

Henry's a perfectionist, I mean, really-really kind of inhuman - very brilliant, very erratic and enigmatic. He's a stiff, cold person, Machiavellian, ascetic and he's made himself what he is by sheer strength of will. His aspiration is to be this Platonic creature of pure rationality and that's why he's attracted to the Classics, and particularly to the Greeks - all those high, cold ideas of beauty and perfection. — Donna Tartt

This whole universe, with all its vastness, grandeur and beauty, is nothing but sheer imagination. In spite of so many discoveries, researches and scientific knowledge, the creation remains a great unsolved riddle. — Meher Baba

Etching will suggest subtle variations of tone, the most delicate shadings, all with black lines, which, as far as lines go, are unsurpassed for sheer beauty. — Walter J. Phillips

Let him cry whoever feels like crying, for we were animals before we became reasoning beings, and the shedding of a tear, whether of forgiveness or of pity or of sheer delight at beauty, will do him a lot of good. — Lin Yutang

Perhaps that is why we humans are so devoted to animals, because they are not turned off by the outward appearances people so often judge us by.We may love horses for their sheer beauty but I don't think they fall in love with us for ours. Nor do they need to know how much we have achieved or how we rank on a best-seller list. They accept us for who we are. — Susan Richards

The world is rational and creative. It's a wonderful mystery for our minds to discover and celebrate . God's everywhere and we are all different. That's the beauty of it-the sheer diversity. What a tapestry to enjoy. — Adam Williams

Offen love between two people intensifies not because of beauty or some advantage, but because of sheer spiritual affinity. — Al-Ghazali

He realized that his eyes were fixed on the scene not out of duty, but from sheer inability to look away from the sheen of mingled rain and blood that gleamed on muscle, tightened in anguish to a curve of wrenching beauty. — Diana Gabaldon

My head reeled at the sheer and startling beauty, the wide, bare openness of it. The sense of space, the vastness of the sky above and on either side made my heart race, I would have travelled a thousand miles to see this. I had never imagined such a place. — Susan Hill

I have thought that the word America must mean different things to the people who live under its aegis. I would that for each of them it might be symbolized by one -- at least one -- memory of some aspect of unspoiled nature. America -- wide, far-reaching, insouciant -- has been the amphitheater for our civilization. I wish each of us could appreciate its vast beauty, and could see how far the elements of our civilization fall short of the sheer majesty of our America. — Harvey Broome

You're talking about gold and silver, cash and securities. I'm talking about the sheer beauty of the land, the value of unpolluted parkland made wild and staying wild forever. — Jasper Fforde

There is something gratuitous about creation, an unnecessary abundance of beauty, and through its blossoms and pleasures we can revel in the sheer largesse of the Father. — Michael Reeves

And It was said to me: "embrace the glorious mess you are". How easy it is to see darkness in the winter shedding and not see that even in its gloominess lies great beauty. That even in our great struggles - lies within a great victory. How then does the Spring green come about without the fertilisation of the Winter brown? Isn't it the very brown that gives way and life to the green we await to goggle in awe. There is power and sheer beauty in your mess. A true triumphing chaos that renders sweet melodic honey to your journey. So again it was whispered to me "embrace the glorious mess that you are — Malebo Sephodi

Oh, do you understand what I mean? Have you ever felt that about the Moon? Have you ever ached with the sheer beauty of it? — James Lusarde

Are the roses not also--even as the owl is--excessive? Each flower is small and lovely, but in their sheer and silent abundance the roses become an immutable force, as though the work of the wild roses was to make sure that all of us, who come wandering over the sand, may be, for a while, struck to the heart and saturated with a simple joy. — Mary Oliver

There's a reason why I tell this story. To me these Sunday painters represent myo - the strangeness of beauty - an idea that transcendence can be found in what's common and small. Rather than wishing for singularity and celebrity and genius (and growing all gloomy in its absence), these painters recognize the ordinariness of their talents and remain undaunted.
It's the blessings in life, not in self, that they mean to express.
And therein lies the transcendence. For as people pursue their plain, decent goals, as they whittle their crude flutes, paint their flat landscapes, make unexceptional love to their spouses - in their numbers across cultures and time, in their sheer tenacity as in the face of a random universe they perform their small acts of awareness and appreciation - there is a mysterious, strange beauty. — Lydia Minatoya

At some point, one asks, "Toward what end is my life lived?" A great freedom comes from being able to answer that question. A sleeper can be decoyed out of bed by the sheer beauty of dawn on the open seas. Part of my job, as I see it, is to allow that to happen. Sleepers like me need at some point to rise and take their turn on morning watch for the sake of the planet, but also for their own sake, for the enrichment of their lives. From the deserts of Namibia to the razor-backed Himalayas, there are wonderful creatures that have roamed the Earth much longer than we, creatures that not only are worthy of our respect but could teach us about ourselves. — Diane Ackerman

Automobiles have always been part of my life, and I'm sure they always will be. What is it about them that moves me? The sound of a great engine, the unity and uniqueness of an automobile's engineering and coachwork, the history of the company and the car, and, of course, the sheer beauty of the thing. — Edward Herrmann

The sheer splendor of the sight made my chest tighten and tears sting my eyes. All the darkness lately made it easy to forget the world contained more than people trying to hurt other people. It had beauty, too, if you knew where to look
and remembered to open your eyes. — Jeaniene Frost

it was about tragedy transformed over the years into joy. It was about the beauty of sheer effort. I — Anne Lamott

In grace and beauty and sheer fascination, they were alike. But where Katherine had been a white kitten, Elena was a snow-white tigress. — L.J.Smith

I'd love to go and visit the Mosque in Mecca again, just for the sheer beauty of it, not for God - much the way a non-Catholic might go to Vatican City because of the beauty of the buildings and the artifacts. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

I think that when you consider the beauty of the world and you wonder how it came to be what it is, you are naturally overwhelmed with a feeling of awe, a feeling of admiration and you almost feel a desire to worship something. I feel this, I recognise that other scientists such as Carl Sagan feel this, Einstein felt it. We, all of us, share a kind of religious reverence for the beauties of the universe, for the complexity of life. For the sheer magnitude of the cosmos, the sheer magnitude of geological time. And it's tempting to translate that feeling of awe and worship into a desire to worship some particular thing, a person, an agent. You want to attribute it to a maker, to a creator. What science has now achieved is an emancipation from that impulse to attribute these things to a creator.
God Delusion debate Professor Richard Dawkins vs John Lennox — Richard Dawkins

She always told us there were two types of women. Those who are lit from the outside and those who are lit from within. The first needs the shimmer of a diamond to maker her sparkle, but for the other, her beauty is illuminated through the sheer light of her soul. — Alyson Richman

You can't see why anyone wouldn't want to wallow in the sheer beauty of language. — Peter Watts

Everything that God sends us is beautiful, even though we may not understand it - and we only need to give it some proper thought to see that what God gives is just sheer happiness; the suffering is what we add to it. — Adalbert Stifter

Here is a fundamental conflict in educated society: We are not supposed to value beauty so highly, and yet who can defend against its sheer power to move, its rhetorical force? — Russell Smith

Escape
from the power of the hunting pack,
and to know that wisdom is best
and beauty
sheer holiness. — Hilda Doolittle

My basic philosophy of teaching was straightforward and deeply personal. I wanted to teach the way I wished that I myself had been taught. Which is to say, I hoped to convey the sheer joy of learning, the thrill of understanding things about the universe. I wanted to pass along to students not only the logic but the beauty of math and science. Furthermore, I wanted to do this in a way that would be equally helpful to kids studying a subject for the first time and for adults who wanted to refresh their knowledge; for students grappling with homework and for older people hoping to keep their minds active and supple. — Salman Khan

At that moment there were two feelings inside Celeste's tiny, rapidly beating heart that made her feel as full, and as empty, as a gourd. The sheer beauty of this moment was perfect and sublime. But she was alone. — Henry Cole

It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such
an inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their
absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack
of style. They affect us just as vulgarity affects us. They give us
an impression of sheer brute force, and we revolt against that.
Sometimes, however, a tragedy that possesses artistic elements of
beauty crosses our lives. If these elements of beauty are real, the
whole thing simply appeals to our sense of dramatic effect. Suddenly
we find that we are no longer the actors, but the spectators of the
play. Or rather we are both. We watch ourselves, and the mere wonder
of the spectacle enthralls us. — Oscar Wilde

Beckett finally allowed himself to turn to her, to see what they saw. He had to smile. She was sheer sex and sin. The boots were old favorites with high, steel heels. And as predicted, her pants were orgasmically tight. She had a corset on, goddamn it, and her tits were so distracting it was obscene. Across her chest hung rounds of ammo like she'd just won the beauty pageant of death, and a leather jacket topped the whole fucking thing off. Well, that and the impressive automatic weapon slung over her shoulder. She pulled her favorite knife from where it was strapped to her thigh next to another. She twirled her hair into a bun and slid the knife into it, meeting his gaze when it was set. Eve was magnificent. Every damn time. — Debra Anastasia

We often seek beauty in the outside, in the unknown, and often lack to realize the sheer beauty right in front of our very eyes, back home. — Akilnathan Logeswaran

With the years his dislike of humbug had increased; the orthodoxy he had worn in the 'sixties', as he had worn side-whiskers out of sheer exuberance , had long dropped off, leaving him reverent before three things alone - beauty, upright conduct, and the sense of property; and the greatest of these now was beauty. — John Galsworthy

Beauty is excrescence, superabundance, random ebulience, and sheer delightful waste to be enjoyed in its own right. — Donald C. Peattie

Part of the magic of the experience lay in the sheer beauty of the setting: the breathtaking sight of the high mountains, the sweep of the sky, the panorama of the great valley. The beauty drives you out of the self for a moment - so that for this time, the self is not. — Joseph Jaworski

This is part of the involuntary bargain we make with the world just by being alive. We get to experiences the splendor of nature, the beauty of art, the balm of love and the sheer joy of existence, always with the knowledge that illness, injury, natural disaster, or pure evil can end it in an instant for ourselves or someone we love. — Jeff Greenfield

There are issues worth advancing in images worth admiring; and the truth is never "plain," nor appearances ever "sincere." To try to make them so is to neutralize the primary, gorgeous eccentricity of imagery in Western culture since the Reformation: the fact that it cannot be trusted, that imagery is always presumed to be proposing something contestable and controversial. This is the sheer, ebullient, slithering, dangerous fun of it. No image is presumed inviolable in our dance hall of visual politics, and all images are potentially powerful. — Dave Hickey

Out of sheer perversity, I followed beauty where it lead, into the silence. — Dave Hickey