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Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty.

— Jun'ichirō Tanizaki In Praise of Shadows (1933)

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Beauty

More quotes by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki

Every worm to his taste;
Some prefer to eat nettles.

Some Prefer Nettles (1929)

Such is our way of thinking — we find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of shadows, the light and the darkness, that one thing against another creates.

In Praise of Shadows (1933)

Children retain a great deal, and when they grow up they start going over things and rejudging them from a grownup’s point of view. This must have been this way, and that was that way, they say. That’s why you have to be careful with children — some day they grow up.

Some Prefer Nettles (1929)

The quality that we call beauty...must always grow from the realities of life, and our ancestors, forced to live in dark rooms, presently came to discover beauty in shadows, ultimately to guide shadows towards beauty's ends.

In Praise of Shadows (1933)

You are being very demanding indeed. Where, I wonder, will we find the woman to satisfy you? You really should have stayed single — all woman-worshippers should be single. They never find the woman who answers all the requirements.

Some Prefer Nettles (1929)

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