#beau

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

#depression #god #inspiration #instruction #love

I have not only labored solely for the benefit of others (receiving for myself a miserable pittance), but have been forced to model my thoughts at the will of men whose imbecility was evident to all but themselves" — Edgar Allan Poe ↗

— Daniel Stashower

#beauty

Human lives are conmposed like music. Guided by his sense of beauty, an individual transforms a fortuitous occurrence into a motif, which then assumes a permanent place in the composition of an individual's life. ↗

— Milan Kundera

#vecchiaia #beauty

We did not learn how to feel or experience our bodies, how to appreciate our own strengths, how to value or respect or understand the packages we came in. Instead, we learned how to look at them, to pair sexuality with desirability, to measure the worth of our bodies by their capacity to elicit admiration from others. ↗

— Caroline Knapp

#body #sexuality #women #beauty

our fatal troika dashes on in her headlong flight perhaps to destruction and in all Russia for long past men have stretched out imploring hands and called a halt to its furious reckless course. ↗

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

#beauty

Not that the man needed clothes. God meant for that piece of perfection to have nothing masking the luscious, tanned flesh stretched taut over beautiful muscles. ↗

— Rena Marks

#erotica #rena-marks #beauty

The cyclone had set the house down gently, very gently – for a cyclone—in the midst of a country of marvelous beauty. There were lovely patches of green sward all about, with stately trees bearing rich and luscious fruits. Banks of gorgeous flowers were on every hand, and birds with rare and brilliant plumage sang and fluttered in the trees and bushes. A little way off was a small brook, rushing and sparkling along between green banks, and murmuring in a voice very grateful to a little girl who had lived so long on the dry, gray prairies. ↗

— L. Frank Baum

#description #fantasy #beauty

As for everything else, so for a mathematical theory: beauty can be perceived but not explained. ↗

— Arthur Cayley

#else #everything #explained #mathematical #perceived

She wore a loose bathrobe that covered up a body that would have won first prize in a beauty contest for cement blocks.....She had a voice that made pearl harbour sound like a lullaby. ↗

— Richard Brautigan

#hardboiled #humour #noir #beauty

I left this morning saying ‘I love you’ as if setting out for some unknown country instead of the corner shop. I wanted you to be sure, in case this time - out of, say, 10,000 departures I never made it back: although after 50 years together, 2 countries, 3 children, and several former journeys that would put this one to shame you’d think there’d be no need to pause on my own doorstep, suddenly afraid of the distance between us, of your absolute beauty, of the growing aloneness when I clicked the latch. ↗

— Peter Bland

#peter-bland #beauty