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Beauty is something that disappears when you try to define it.

— Iain Banks The State of the Art (1991)

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Beauty

More quotes by Iain Banks

The news channels are spasming, or frothing, or whatever it is they do.

The Hydrogen Sonata (2013)

Reason shapes the future, but superstition infects the present.

The State of the Art (1991)

Faith is the eye that sees nothing and rejoices in it.

Feersum Endjinn (1994)

While the forces of repression need to win every time, the progressive elements need only triumph once.

The State of the Art (1991)

Mocking the wisdom that comes with age is a fit sport only for those who expect never to attain much of it themselves.

Inversions (1998)

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