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How should I gauge what beauty is her dole,
Who cannot see her countenance for her soul,
As birds see not the casement for the sky?
And as 'tis check they prove its presence by,
I know not of her body till I find
My flight debarred the heaven of her mind.

— Francis Thompson

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Beauty

More quotes by Francis Thompson

An Atheist is a man who believes himself an accident.

The innocent moon, that nothing does but shine,
Moves all the labouring surges of the world.

That men who find Christianity too hard of belief should come to believe in Paganism, sounds, I know, like an absurdity. But nothing is so incalculable as the credulity of incredulity.

Anchorite, who didst dwell
With all the world for cell!

Whose form is as a grove
Hushed with the cooing of an unseen dove.

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Beautiful objects are wrought by study through effort, but ugly things are reaped automatically without toil.

Democritus Freeman (1948)

True beauty dwells in deep retreats,
Whose veil is unremoved
Till heart with heart in concord beats,
And the lover is beloved.

William Wordsworth

The great artists are the ones who dare to entitle to beauty things so natural that when they're seen afterward, people say: Why did I never realize before that this too was beautiful?

André Gide The Immoralist (1902)

Beauty itself doth of itself persuade
The eyes of men without an orator.

William Shakespeare The Rape of Lucrece (1594)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Francis Thompson (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.