Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air -
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?

In understanding what beauty is, we shall know love, for the understanding of beauty is the peace of the heart.

The moment you have in your heart this extra-ordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed.

A feeling of beauty is a sign that we have come upon a material articulation of certain of our ideas of a good life.

In its real sense, beauty is the illumination of your soul

There is nothing that makes its way more directly into the soul than beauty.

But the more I talked to you, the more I listened to you, I began to see the beauty in you. In all of you. And I've been moved and humbled by it. I wish you could see yourselves as I do.

For once, you believed in yourself. You believed you were beautiful and so did the rest of the world.

Our lives become beautiful not because we are perfect. Our lives become beautiful because we put our heart into what we are doing. It doesn't matter what we are doing. Whether we are sweeping the floor, or managing the country, or whatever we are doing. If we are putting our heart into what we are doing, it is beautiful to be doing that activity. Living in an atmosphere where people are passionate about what they are doing itself is highly enriching.

Our lives become beautiful not because we are perfect. Our lives become beautiful because we put our heart into what we are doing.

Beauty leads you back to what you have lost. Beauty reminds you of what remains forever immune to cynicism. Beauty beckons in a manner that straightens your aim. Beauty reminds you that there is lesser and greater value. Many things make life worth living: love, play, courage, gratitude, work, friendship, truth, grace, hope, virtue, and responsibility. But beauty is among the greatest of these.

When I think of art, I think of beauty. Beauty is the mystery of life. It is in the mind, not in the eye. In our minds, we have an awareness of perfection that leads us on.. .The response to beauty is emotion. Sometimes very subtle emotions of which we are almost not aware, and sometimes our most powerful emotions..

We respond with joy to the call of beauty because in an instant it can awaken under the layers of the heart a forgotten brightness. Plato said: 'Beauty was ours in all its brightness...Whole were we who celebrated that festival' (Phaedrus).

Beauty is how you feel inside, and it reflects in your eyes. It is not something physical.