A Few Quotes

A good friend of mine urged me a few weeks ago to post again. Thanks, Melissa! I'm working on an article on an unrelated topic so all I've got today are a few quotes I've collected recently. I'll write a real post soon. Remember to enjoy the beauty around you!

“The chearful birds their airy carols sing/And the whole year is one eternal spring.” Ovid, Metamorphoses

“In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.” Aristotle

“Earth laughs in flowers.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Quotations to Share

"We must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind us to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and mystery."- H. G. Wells

"That which is striking and beautiful is not always good, but that which is good is always beautiful." - Ninon de l'Eenclos, 1620 - 1705.

"Earth laughs in flower." Ralph Waldo Emerson

“People discuss my art and pretend to understand as if it were necessary to understand, when it's simply necessary to love.” -Claude Monet

"Our truest life
is when we are in our dreams
Awake."

- Henry David Thoreau
(got this from Brenda Leyland's blog, It's a Beautiful Life)

A Few Quotations about Art

As you probably know, I love quotations, and I post them often on this blog and my Christians in the Arts blog. Today I'm thinking about beauty in art and wanted to share these thoughts with you:


Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.
--Andre Gide

We can't take any credit for our talents. It's how we use them that counts.
--Madeleine L'Engle

All writing is a form of prayer.
--John Keats

A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.
--W.H. Auden

I write with intensity, discipline and constancy, because this is the work that calls me, the vocation of my heart.
--bell hooks

Personal essayists converse with the reader because they're already having dialogues and disputes with themselves.
--Phillip Lopate

Never lose a holy curiosity.
--Albert Einstein

Beauty Quotes

Enjoy!

"Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting--a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing." --Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears." -- Edgar Allen Poe

"Creativity is not restricted to the arts. Creativity is an approach to living life." --Alyce Cornyn-Selby

"If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in." --Rachel Carson

"There are two ways of being creative. One can sing and dance. Or one can create an environment in which singers and dancers flourish." -- Warren G. Bennis

The Beauty of the Moon

The last few weeks, the sun has been rising a little earlier, so when we leave the house for school, there's a bit of light to guide us. Yesterday, as we drove down our street, we saw the moon big and full just ahead. It had a haze around it, which reminded me of the fog a couple of weeks ago. It was so beautiful. I don't tend to think about the moon until I see it, but if it weren't there, I would miss it.

The beauty and mystery of the moon have inspired many people to write songs about it, or about love under the moon, or a longing for love under the moon, or even "I have nobody except the moon." Songs like "Blue Moon," "It's Only a Paper Moon," "Dancin' in the Moonlight," "Carolina Moon," "Moon River and Me", "Moonlight and Roses." These songs make me think of romance, and of Valentine's Day on Saturday.

Then there's "Fly Me to the Moon," which makes me think of The Flintstones, where I first heard Fred sing the song to Wilma. Now that was romantic.

For fun, I looked up some quotes about the moon and of course there are scores of them. Here are a few favorites:

“I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not looking at it.” Albert Einstein

“See how nature - trees, flowers, grass - grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence...we need silence to be able to touch souls.”  Mother Teresa of Calcutta

“Beauty is a form of genius - is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation. It is of the great facts in the world like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in dark water of that silver shell we call the moon.”  Oscar Wilde

“When I admire the wonder of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in worship of the Creator.” Mahatma Gandhi
 
“The moon, like a flower
In heaven's high bower,
With silent delight
Sits and smiles on the night.” William Blake
 
And finally, a blessing for you: “May you have warm words on a cold evening, a full moon on a dark night and a smooth road all the way to your door.” Irish Blessing

Quotes about Creation

I'm running late this morning so I thought I'd share with you some quotes about beauty in creation that I found the other day. 

"All seasons are beautiful for the person who carries happiness within." Horace Friess

"Flowers are words which even a baby can understand." Quentin Crisp

"Where flowers bloom so does hope." Lady Bird Johnson

"What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls a butterfly." Richard Bach

"A butterfly lands where it pleases and pleases where it lands." Anonymous

"A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song." Chinese proverb

"What is one to say about June, the time of perfect young summer." Gertrude Jekyll

"Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole." Roger Caras

"How kind you were to open the gates of heaven and give me that little glimpse of Paradise." From an 18th-Century letter

What are some of your favorite quotes about beauty? I'd love to know. Please leave me a comment.

Words to Inspire

Every so often, I like to share some favorite quotations about beauty. Today’s group includes a poet, the father of the Protestant Reformation, and a child who responded with fresh and honest enthusiasm to the beauty he saw.


“Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.” Martin Luther

"Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
And only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries . . ." Elizabeth Barrett Browning

“I didn’t think orange went with purple until I saw the sunset you made on [Tuesday]. That was cool.” From Children’s Letters to God

Words to Inspire

Those of you who read my other blog, Christians in the Arts, know how much I love quotations. I collect them on the computer and in a Moleskine journal with a purple silk cover. I pull them out when I want to be inspired. I like to share them with others too. Here are a few quotations on beauty that I hope will inspire you today:


"A thing of beauty is a joy forever: Its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness; but still will keep a bower quiet for us, and a sleepfull of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing." -- John Keats

"Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting--a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm. Philosophies fall away like sand, and creeds follow one another like the withered leaves of Autumn; but what is beautiful is a joy for all seasons and a possession for all eternity." -- Oscar Wilde

"Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old." -- Franz Kafka

May we always keep the ability to appreciate beauty.