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The muddy, impure world, so undiscriminating,
Seeks always to hide beauty, out of jealousy.

世溷浊而不分兮，好蔽美而嫉妒。

Original text (Chinese)

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Notes from Wikiquote

Line 107

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Beauty

More quotes by Qu Yuan

Long, long had been my road and far, far was the journey;
I would go up and down to seek my heart's desire.

For the world is impure and envious of the able,
And eager to hide men's good and make much of their ill.

How well I know that loyalty brings disaster.

The fools enjoy their careless pleasure,
But their way is dark and leads to danger.

O Soul come back to watch the birds in flight!
He who has found such manifold delights
Shall feel his cheeks aglow
And the blood-spirit dancing through his limbs.

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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?

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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: Qu Yuan (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.