The first question I ask myself when something doesn't seem to be beautiful is why do I think it's not beautiful. And very shortly you discover that there is no reason. -- John Cage

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The easiest thing God does is make beautiful things. -- Bill Purdin

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It's not that you have to be beautiful to be happy. It's that you have to be happy to be beautiful. -- Bill Purdin

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Order is the shape upon which beauty depends. -- Pearl Buck

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Who are these historians of beauty who make us all drink up and from the same cup? -- Bill Purdin

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Never compare your inside with somebody else's outside. -- Hugh Macleod

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Anything looked at closely becomes wonderful. -- A. R. Ammons

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You can only perceive real beauty in a person as they get older. -- Anouk Aimee

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Beauty is the purgation of superfluities. -- Michelangelo Buonarroti

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Beware so long as you live, of judging people by appearances. -- La Fontaine

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People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within. -- Elizabeth Kübler-Ross

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There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.
-- Sir Francis Bacon

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Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together. -- Petrarch

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The ugly duckling syndrome is a blessing in disguise. It sends you forth with a far, far greater awareness of fairness and a sensitivity to others than all the swans can ever dream of. I wish there were more ugly ducklings. -- Bill Purdin

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The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, not touched . . . but are felt in the heart. -- Helen Keller

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It is the mind that makes the body. -- Sojourner Truth

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Beauty is the promise of happiness. -- Stendahl (Henri Beyle)

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The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express. -- Francis Bacon

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From The New York Times... click for a larger view.

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Even in the midst of terrible human turmoil, there is beauty always quietly around us. -- Bill Purdin