Once upon a time, not so long ago, beauty was the greatest accomplishment the only

accomplishment! for women. Their survival was dependent on being passed from their
fathers to their husbands for income, for shelter, for life. In 1974, women still needed a
husbands signature to open a credit line, so may we be conscious of the fact that these are
not ancient, archaic issues, realities of far-gone, lesser times.
Being objectively beautiful, better than other women, is something thats so deeply ingrained
in our psyches, and its only now being rendered obsolete as we (thankfully) change the way
we determine worth.
The need to be beautiful, the obsession, the compulsion, the overwhelming desire, is rooted in
survival, laced with instinct, compounded by consumerism, and associated most with the
cosmetics counter.
And so there is a tension, and a disconnect, for the great truth we are subsequently neglecting.
So long as we cultivate how we appear, how consumable we are, how admired, how loved,
we remain existing, focused and present only on the surface.
Beauty is very real, and it has little to do with how our molecules configure. There is a
fascinating, calming, consuming rawness, an unmistakable humanness to someone connected
with their genuine self. Someone so ignited by the light they know is theirs, they radiate it
out. These are the people on which you often see lovers gazing bleary and doe-eyed,
enamored and unconditional in their appreciation of them. Its never because they were the
most attractive person in the room. Its because they emit a frequency someone who is like
them can feel, and understand.
How we cheapen beauty, by saying its only the litheness of a limb or proportion of a feature.
All that we miss out on, by foregoing everything we could be in pursuit of everything other
people think we are. Even the most accomplished in being physically beautiful have done
nothing more than make themselves resemble someone else.
So here are 40 great minds on beauty, bodies, womanhood, love, attraction, and worth. May it
remind you that you are not only what others perceive you to be, and inspire you with the
knowledge that your body is not your art it is your paintbrush.

1.
It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.
Leo Tolstoy

2.
Ive found that the men worth fucking are far more good-natured about the female body in
its varied forms than is generally acknowledged. Naked and smiling is one male friends
only (physical) requirement for a lover.'
Cheryl Strayed

3.
Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it
not.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

4.
The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known
suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These
persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with
compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.
Elisabeth Kbler-Ross

5.
Thats always seemed so ridiculous to me, that people want to be around someone because
theyre pretty. Its like picking your breakfast cereals based on color instead of taste.
John Green

6.
She was beautiful, but not like those girls in the magazines. She was beautiful, for the way
she thought. She was beautiful, for the sparkle in her eyes when she talked about something
she loved. She was beautiful, for her ability to make other people smile, even if she was sad.
No, she wasnt beautiful for something as temporary as her looks. She was beautiful, deep
down to her soul. She is beautiful.
F. Scott Fitzgerald

7.
Remember that there are two kinds of beauty: one of the soul and the other of the body. That
of the soul displays its radiance in intelligence, in chastity, in good conduct, in generosity, and
in good breeding, and all these qualities may exist in an ugly man. And when we focus our
attention upon that beauty, not upon the physical, love generally arises with great violence
and intensity. I am well aware that I am not handsome, but I also know that I am not
deformed, and it is enough for a man of worth not to be a monster for him to be dearly loved,
provided he has those spiritual endowments I have spoken of.
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

8.
People make such a big deal about looks, but after a while, when you know someone, you
dont even notice anymore
Alex Flinn

9.
Our lives are mere flashes of light in an infinitely empty universe. In 12 years of education
the most important lesson I have learned is that what we see as normal living is truly a
travesty of our potential. In a society so governed by superficiality, appearances, and petty
economics, dreams are more real than anything anything in the real world. Refuse
normalcy. Beauty is everywhere, love is endless, and joy bleeds from our everyday existence.
Embrace it. I love all of you, all my friends, family, and community. I am ceaselessly grateful
from the bottom of my heart for everyone. The only thing I can ask of you is to stay free of
materialism. Remember that every day contains a universe of potential; exhaust it. Live and
love so immensely that when death comes there is nothing left for him to take. Wealth is love,
music, sports, learning, family and freedom. Above all, stay gold.
Dominic Owen Mallary

10.
The most beautiful women I have known had one thing in common apart from beauty:
humility. Its a shame that those with less to boast about do it the most.
Donna Lynn Hope

11.
Beauty appears when something is completely and absolutely and openly itself.
Deena Metzger

12.
A mismatched outfit, a slightly defective denture, an exquisite mediocrity of the soul-those
are the details that make a woman real, alive. The women you see on posters or in fashion
magazines-the ones all the women try to imitate nowadays-how can they be attractive? They
have no reality of their own; theyre just the sum of a set of abstract rules. They arent born of
human bodies; they hatch ready-made from the computers.
Milan Kundera

13.
A cultural fixation on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty but an
obsession about female obedience.
Naomi Wolf

14.
Beauty doesnt matter because in the end, we all lose our looks and all we have is our heart.
Ann Curry

15.

Beauty is not a need but an ecstasy. It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched
forth, but rather a heart inflamed and a soul enchanted. It is not the image you would see nor
the song you would hear, but rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song
you hear though you shut your ears. It is not the sap within the furrowed bark, nor a win
attached to a claw, but rather a garden forever in bloom and a flock of angels forever in
flight. Beauty is life when life unveils her holy face. But you are life and you are the
veil. Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in the mirror. But you are eternity and you are the
mirror.
Khalil Gibran

16.
The ugliest thing in the world is a beautiful woman without the brains or courage to know
that [beauty] is nothing more than an accident.
Charlie Fletcher

17.
When I was your age I wish Id known that I already had everything I needed within
myself to be happy, instead of looking for happiness at beauty counters.
Ilene Beckerman

18.
What was beauty unless you intended to use it, like a hammer, or a key? It was just
something for other people to use and admire, or envy, despise. To nail their dreams onto like
a picture hanger on a blank wall. And so many girls saying, use me, dream me.
Janet Fitch

19.
A beautiful woman should break her mirror early.
Balthasar Gracian

20.
The beauty myth of the present is more insidious than any mystique of femininity yet: A
century ago, Nora slammed the door of the dolls house; a generation ago, women turned
their backs on the consumer heaven of the isolated multi-applianced home; but where women
are trapped today, there is no door to slam. The contemporary ravages of the beauty backlash
are destroying women physically and depleting us psychologically. If we are to free ourselves
from the dead weight that has once again been made out of femaleness, it is not ballots or
lobbyists or placards that women will need first; it is a new way to see.
Naomi Wolf

21.

When you are truly stunning, gorgeous and beautiful, you wont have to prove that to
anyone visually.
Alexandra Elle

22.
But maybe you see beauty in me because you are beautiful, not because I am.
Amy Harmon

23.
What is true about music is true about life: that beauty reveals everything because it
expresses nothing.
Mandy Slade

24.
I am not my body. My body is nothing without me.
Tom Stoppard

25.
If it ever occurs to people to value the honour of the mind equally with the honour of the
body, we shall get a social revolution of a quite unparalleled sort.
Dorothy L. Sayers

26.
Bodies have their own light which they consume to live: they burn, they are not lit from the
outside.
Egon Schiele

27.
Our bodies are changing every second. Yet we take the body to be our Self; and, speaking in
terms of it, we say, I am hungry or I am lame; I am black or I am white. These are all
just the conditions of the body. We touch the truth when we say, My body aches, implying
the body belongs to us and that therefore we are not that.
Swami Satchidananda

28.
Beauty is the virtue of the body as virtue is the beauty of the soul
Ralph Waldo Emerson

29.

Physical excellence does not of itself produce a good mind and character: on the other hand,
excellence of mind and character will make the best of the physique it is given.
Plato

30.
Theres an apt expression: If you dont live in your body, where are you going to live? But
many of us dont. We tend to get locked into our heads or our imaginations recognizing the
importance of the body is primary. Its who we are, its where we live, it houses and
embodies that mind and imagination.
Bill Connington

31.
When we fulfill any need of the human body, it gives us pleasure. To breathe gives us much
pleasure.
Miguel Ruiz

32.
A persons mind can find to see only his outer image in the mirror, his heart can see the
inner part of his lifes beauty, but his soul can see the whole structure of his character
enshrined in his body.
Anuj Somany

33.
The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

34.
A beautiful woman is a beautiful woman, but a beautiful woman with a brain is an
absolutely lethal combination.
Prabal Gurung

35.
There is nothing more attractive than confidence, once she sees her own beauty, everyone
else will.
Habeeb Akande

36.

Look, whenever I hear or read Im beautiful, I simply dont understand it Im certainly

not beautiful in any conventional way. I didnt make my career on beauty.
Audrey Hepburn

37.
The most pleasant and alluring curve on a woman is the smile.
Treasure Stitches

38.
When you judge a woman by her appearance, it doesnt define her, it defines you.
Steve Maraboli

39.
Some of the greatest poetry is revealing to the reader the beauty in something that was so
simple you had taken it for granted.
Neil deGrasse Tyson

40.
I have found, beauty is the illumination of the mind
John Geddes