c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
A girl stood before him in midstream, alone and still, gazing out to sea. She seemed like one whom magic had changed into the likeness of a strange and beautiful seabird. Her long slender bare legs were delicate as a crane's and pure save where an emerald trail of seaweed had fashioned itself as a sign upon the flesh. Her thighs, fuller and soft-hued as ivory, were bared almost to the hips, where the white fringes of her drawers were like feathering of soft white down. Her slate-blue skirts were kilted boldly about her waist and dovetailed behind her. Her bosom was as a bird's, soft and slight, slight and soft as the breast of some dark-plumaged dove. But her long fair hair was girlish: and girlish, and touched with the wonder of mortal beauty, her face.
— James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Julia", I answered breathlessly. "Chloe, are you in the bathroom fucking that nice slice of man cake?" "I'll be there in a second, okay?" I ended the call and shoved the phone back into my bag. I looked up at him, feeling my rational side return after the small interruption. "I should go." "Look, I-" He was cut off as my phone rang again. I answered without bothering to look at the screen. "God, Julia! I’m not in here fucking the piece of man cake!" "Chloe?" Joel's confused voice sounded through the phone. "Oh... hi." Shit. This could not be happening to me.
— Christina Lauren, Beautiful Bastard
Usually, the murmur that rises up from Paris by day is the city talking; in the night it is the city breathing; but here it is the city singing. Listen, then, to this chorus of bell-towers - diffuse over the whole the murmur of half a million people - the eternal lament of the river - the endless sighing of the wind - the grave and distant quartet of the four forests placed upon the hills, in the distance, like immense organpipes - extinguish to a half light all in the central chime that would otherwise be too harsh or too shrill; and then say whetehr you know of anything in the world more rich, more joyous, more golden, more dazzling, than this tumult of bells and chimes - this furnace of music - these thousands of brazen voices, all singing together in flutes of stone three hundred feet high, than this city which is but one orchestra - this symphony which roars like a tempest.
— Victor Hugo
Allow yourself to let go, surrender, and breathe in the beautiful world that is waiting for you just outside of your comfort zone.
— Leigh Hershkovich
And courage to me meant ploughing through that dull gray mist that comes down on life--not only overriding people and circumstances but overriding the bleakness of living.
— F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Offshore Pirate
Darker and darker, he said; farther and farther yet. Death takes the good, the beautiful, and the young - and spares me. The Pestilence that wastes, the Arrow that strikes, the Sea that drowns, the Grave the closes over Love and Hope, are steps of my journey, and take me nearer and nearer to the End.
— Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White
Let go of all expectations, and you shall never be disappointed. I find that rather disappointing to never be disappointed is very expected. Therefore let's only let go of those expectations we know will disappoint us and let's expect to be disappointed sometimes. Life is beautiful that way.
— Nicole Haslam
London is one of the most fascinating, historic, amazing cities in the world!
— Sophie Kinsella, Twenties Girl
There's no shame compared to being beautiful with nothing in your brain, an ugly devil with wits is much better that the former.
— Michael Bassey Johnson
The only thing that ever came close to tugging my heart strings is music. I know this because that is the only time I've felt them move.
— Hafsa Shah
We must pay a price if we are to become priceless.
— Elizabeth George, Beautiful in God's Eyes: The Treasures of the Proverbs 31 Woman
I would fall asleep with my face pressed into her fur, while her deep electrical purr vibrated softly against my cheek. They made me think of the seaside, and so I called her Ocean, and I could not have told you why.
— Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane
When you have to pretend to be someone, anyone other than yourself. Then you need to make over every part of you. Because just pretending to be someone, anyone other than yourself, you always will be just you. Make over your attitude, your ways, values and morals. Then you will be free to be just you.
— Vanessa Vanney Thompson, Words of "Expressions" on a Page: Poetry Love
Death is always equal but never fair
— The person I really am
We all labor against our own cure, for death is the cure of all diseases
— Thomas Browne
I'm a crumbled up piece of paper lying here, 'cause I remember it all too well
— Taylor Swift
Tana would sit near the door to the basement with fingers in her ears, tears and snot running down her face as she cried and cried and cried. And little Pearl would toddle up, crying, too. They cried while they ate their cereal, cried while they watched cartoons, and cried themselves to sleep at night, huddled together in Tana's little bed. 'Make her stop' Pearl said, but Tana couldn't.
— Holly Black, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown
K.I.S.SKeep. It. Simple. Stupid.
— Laura Lee Gulledge, Page by Paige
Idealists are either blind or clowns
—  because they think it is possible to have a beautiful world with asshole creatures like humans.
Every poet creates their own universe that looks more beautiful than reality.
— M.F. Moonzajer
Regardless of how beautiful the world could be; when you have no place in it, it is always ugly.
— M.F. Moonzajer
Cause I'll know my weakness, know my voice. And I'll believe in grace and choice. And I know perhaps my heart is farce, But I'll be born without a mask.
— Mumford and Sons
Life is beautiful, when you make it beautiful
— Roshni
The problem with our sense of justice is we always seemed to be kind to beautiful and attractive criminals.
— M.F. Moonzajer
It seemed as if at least a moment some spring had burst forth in his barren soul.
— Väinö Linna, Reconciliation
A beautiful woman always has her own place in everyman’s heart.
— M.F. Moonzajer
…there’s just something beautiful about walking on snow that nobody else has walked on. It makes you believe you’re special, even though you know you’re not.
— Carol Rifka Brunt, Tell the Wolves I'm Home
It is the reflection of my face. Often in these lost days I study it: I can understand nothing of this face. The faces of others have some sense, some direction. Not mine. I cannot even decide whether it is handsome or ugly. I think it is ugly because I have been told so. But it doesn't strike me. At heart, I am even shocked that anyone can attribute qualities of this kind to it, as if you called a clod of earth or a block of stone beautiful or ugly.
— Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea
Then you don't know. You can't know what it feels like to meet a person and suddenly know without a doubt that the whole purpose of your life so far-every choice you made, every twist of fate along the way-was just a journey to get you to that person. My life started when I met Clea. Every minute without her is just killing time until we can be together again.
— Hilary Duff, Devoted
I must forget you forever; that kind face, beautiful smile and heartbreaking black eyes, I should have known that, angels are not made for humans.
— M.F. Moonzajer, A moment with God ; Poetry
It is not your beautiful face or soft skin that kills me
—  it is your simplicity and being you.
Sometimes the most beautiful things are in front of our eyes, and we don’t even notice because we’re either too busy or too afraid to take a closer look.
— Katja Michael
Shake those stars from your hair, pretty Moonchild. It's time to dance with the noonday sun!
— Jaeda DeWalt
She was lovely with eyes that captivated your heart, a smile that drew your mind, and a presence that captured your soul. She was everything you wanted in a girl, and so much more.
— Victoria Sophia A.B.
But flowers feed our soul in a different way. They remind us of a God who creates beautiful things and takes notice of the tiniest detail
— Tricia Goyer, A Christmas Gift for Rose
Even though we'd put each other through hell, we'd found heaven. Maybe it was more than a couple of sinners like us deserved, but I wasn't going to complain.
— Jamie McGuire, Walking Disaster
The real world reveals itself like surprise gifts on our doorstep, special moments that seem above and beyond the reality of others. These times are full, beautiful and meaningful beyond words, even when wrapped in pain.
— Christopher Hawke, Unnatural Truth
Beauty in the world is not always in the "beautiful.
— Christopher Hawke
Allow the beauty of all that we love be reflected in who we are and in our actions.
— Mark W. Boyer
She is beautiful like an angel, charming like a fairy and sweet like honey.
— M.F. Moonzajer, A moment with God ; Poetry
Lean in a bit so you can see the beautiful world, but don't lean in too far because you can fall
— Nina Boddin
I know you all, and will awhile uphold the unyoked humour of your idleness . . .
— William Shakespeare
Here's the thing about Hazel: Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world. Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting death. We all want to be remembered. I do, too. That's what bothers me most, is being another unremembered casualty in the ancient and inglorious war against disease.I want to leave a mark.But Van Houten: The marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous minimall or start a coup or try to become a rock star and you think, "They'll remember me now," but (a) they don't remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. Your coup becomes a dictatorship. Your minimall becomes a lesion....We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can't stop pissing on fire hydrants. I know it's silly and useless--epically useless in my current state--but I am an animal like any other.Hazel is different. She walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. Hazel knows the truth: We're as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we're not likely to do either.People will say it's sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it's not sad, Van Houten. It's triumphant. It's heroic. Isn't that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm.The real heroes anyway aren't the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention. The guy who invented the smallpox vaccine didn't actually invent anything. He just noticed that people with cowpox didn't get smallpox....But then I wanted more time so we could fall in love. I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar....What else? She is so beautiful. You don't get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers.
— John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
If it hadn't been what it was, it would've been beautiful.
— Megan Abbott, Dare Me
It's the Joshua tree's struggle that gives it its beauty.
— Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle
You are as beautiful as sky, as soft as moon, as shiny as stars and as angry as Sun.
— M.F. Moonzajer
If there is one thing I have come to believe over the years, it’s the notion that there really is somebody for everybody. Every single person is going to look at beauty from a different angle. Every single person is going to be attracted to certain features and characteristics that are completely different than the next person. And… there isn’t a person on earth that everybody on earth finds attractive.
— Dan Pearce, Single Dad Laughing
You look beautiful and tragic, just the way a heroine should on the eve of battle. Like Joan of Arc in her silver armor.
— Melissa de la Cruz, Gates of Paradise
...and on some nights in bed, in that moment before sleep erased the day, I would picture the way the sky in Lapland looked the morning I left, how the train had sped south beneath a sky that was brighter than it had been in weeks. It had pulsed with reds and oranges, as though hiding a beating heart.
— Vendela Vida, Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name
I took a breath, seeing from across the room the rain on his eyelashes. A sudden need to brush them free filled me. I could almost feel the dampness of the rain on my fingers, how soft it would feel.
— Kim Harrison, Dead Witch Walking
Beauty is one of the rare things which does not lead to doubt of God.
— Jean Anouilh
And John Kearns whispered into my ear: "Do you see it now? *You* are the nest. *You* are the hatchling. *You* are the chrysalis. *You* are the progeny. *You* are the rot that falls from the stars. All of us--you and I and poor, dear Pellinore. Behold the face of the magnificum, child. And despair."Though I was sickened by the sight, I looked. In the bower of the beast at the top of the world, I beheld the face of the magnificum, and I did not turn away.
— Rick Yancey, The Isle of Blood
Beautiful toes are an addition to a woman’s appearance.
— Ellen J. Barrier
A chill December morning dawned, with rags and tatters of mist hanging on the trees like poor people’s washing.
— Ken Follett, The Pillars of the Earth
If they can worship a weird creature, which is even not existed; why I must not worship a beautiful one who is already here.
— M.F. Moonzajer, A moment with God ; Poetry
The world population is nearing seven billion. John Travolta and Farrah Fawcett didn’t procreate and produce all seven thousand million of us. Audrey Hepburn and Burt Lancaster didn’t personally populate the world. Almost every child that was ever born is the byproduct of two everyday people who found each other attractive enough to go jump in the sack together. Almost every child that was ever born came about because two everyday people thought the other was attractive enough to warrant a second glance. If you want proof that attraction belongs to the individual, go sit on a bench at the mall and look at all the different couples walking by.You will believe that there literally is someone for everyone.
— Dan Pearce, Single Dad Laughing
Ain’t I your man?” he persisted.“Yeah, Ellis, you’re my man.” Her lips quaked as she said it.
— Tracy Winegar
To be original is not creating your own idea
—  it's the essence of the idea in the reader's mind.
This is my story. I don't know where I'm going, but I know I'm going somewhere beautiful, and I know I'm on my way... It's been a beautiful adventure. It always will be.
— Charlotte Eriksson, Empty Roads & Broken Bottles; in search for The Great Perhaps
The tragedy of life, Howard, is not that the beautiful die young, but that they grow old and mean. It will not happen to me.
— Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
Some boys... Are perfect shits. & other boys are very, very beautiful.
— Benjamin Alire Sáenz, He Forgot to Say Goodbye
There are two sacred causes in this world,” he said, holding up his pinkie and ring ringer. “Chance and necessity. By chance I was there to help when you had need.
— Rachel Hartman, Seraphina
Love is a gamble and sometimes it hurts, but whether you win or lose being in love is a beautiful thing.
— M.J. Abraham, Happenstance
She is so beautiful. Perfect. Mine.No. Not mine. I am hers.
— Stacey Jay, Romeo Redeemed
She's not classically beautiful, but somehow that only makes her more interesting.
— Jodi Picoult, Keeping Faith
I think things are beautiful when you don’t plan them, and you don’t have any expectations, and you’re not trying to get somewhere in particular.
— Alison Mosshart
I wanted to be strong when I went back to Persuasion. Strong and beautiful and totally together. I dreamed of the day I’d get to rub all your faces in my sheer awesomeness.
— Susan Donovan, The Girl Most Likely To...
..."Are you okay?" he says, still looking at me, and I feel my smile slip, fade, and the silence that falls over us then is so total I can’t hear anything, not the rush-hiss of my heart pounding in my chest, not the sounds all around us; insects, wind, and the distant clatter of others’ lives in houses built close but not too close because when we look out our windows we all like to pretend that everything we see is ours. But Ryan is not mine.
— Elizabeth Scott, The Unwritten Rule
I saw a woman who physically and spiritually blocked out the definition of being celestial, and replaced it with her own divine beauty. She was transcendent. She was beyond astonishing in her presence. But what she truly did, which was beyond the scope of an average woman's power, was step above the barriers of reality and illusion with her pure, majestic, and omnipotent beauty.
— Lionel Suggs
We'll go down to the stream behind the house with a bottle of wine and none of our clothes and remind each other that--even in the midst of so much goodness--there are delightful ways to be wicked. And we'll swim and laugh and kiss, and the stars will shine, beautiful and bright, but Ariel will always shine brighter.At least for me.
— Stacey Jay, Romeo Redeemed
But I never just quite liked that ryhme.''Why not, child?''Because it seems to say one's as good as another, or two new ones are better than one that's lost. . . . Somehow, when once you've looked into anybody's eyes, right deep down into them, I mean, nobody will do for that one any more. Nobody, ever so beautiful or so good, will make up for that one going out of sight.
— George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind
Had it been possible for me to fix the plane permanently in the sky, to defy the winds and clouds and all the forces pushing it upward and pulling it earthward, I would have willingly done so. I would have stayed in my seat with my eyes closed, all strength and passion gone, my mind as quiescent as a coat rack under a forgotten hat, and I would have remained there, timeless, unmeasured, unjudged, bothering no one, suspended forever between my past and my future.
— Jerzy Kosiński, Steps
I haven’t seen angels, but I am sure they are not as beautiful as you are.
— M.F. Moonzajer, A moment with God ; Poetry
It's a luxury being a writer because all you ever think about is life.
— Amy Tan
All girls say men are the same but I'm different, I don’t like calling girls hot or sexy because to me calling a girl that means you’re looking something of them. So I like using the word beautiful because beautiful is a very strong word and I feel it’s from the same category as love because love and beautiful come from the heart and not the eyes.
— Anndrue Martin
You’re incredibly brave. And you’re going to make it through this because you have a very strong heart. A heart that is capable of loving so much about life and people in a way you never dreamt a heart could love. And you’re beautiful in here. Your heart is so beautiful and someday someone is going to love that heart like it deserves to be loved.
— Colleen Hoover, Hopeless
How could such a beautiful man be insecure?
— R.K. Lilley, In Flight
Not gray, exactly. Right before the sun rises there's a moment when the whole sky goes this pale nothing color-not really gray but sort of, or sort of white, and I've always really liked it because it reminds me of waiting for something good to happen.
— Lauren Oliver, Delirium
You put your soul into those paintings, and nothing in this world is more beautiful to me than that soul of yours.
— R.K. Lilley, Grounded
The only thing true about what you just said was the storybook damsel part - and that only because you're pretty enough to be one.
— Richelle Mead, The Golden Lily
Ladies, most of you have no idea how beautiful you are. Don't let mean words from an insecure soul blind you from the truth of your beauty. You are beautiful by design... just the way you are.
— Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
This woman is beautiful and clever: but how much cleverer she would have become if she were not beautiful!
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality
The paperweight was the room he was in, and the coral was Julia's life and his own, fixed in a sort of eternity at the heart of the crystal.
— George Orwell, 1984
At the base of the immense pillar, tiny Babylon was in shadow. Then the darkness climbed the tower, like a canopy unfurling upward. It moved slowly enough that Hillalum felt he could count the moments passing, but then it grew faster as it approached, until it raced past them faster than he could blink, and they were in twilight... For the first time, he knew night for what it was: the shadow of the earth itself, cast against the sky.
— Ted Chiang, Stories of Your Life and Others
I want something good to die for. . . to make it beautiful to live.
— Stacey T. Hunt, The Adventure Begins
Hewas beautiful. I know, it’s not the manliest way to describe a guy, but inmy head, it was the adjective I used most often and it fit him to a tee.
— S.C. Stephens, Thoughtless
When I am alone and my skull is ripsaw I want to jump into the womb of any bonfire, I want to leap into the ceiling fan head first, but I need that fan this coming summer.
— Derrick Brown, Scandalabra
You'd be surprised what poison is often hidden in the most beautiful camouflage.
— Evelyn Klebert, Ghost Soldier
Moderation sees itself as beautiful
—  it is unaware that in the eye of the immoderate it appears black and sober and consequently ugly-looking
Do not forget to tell your daughters God made them beautiful.
— Habeeb Akande
That— we seemed to have decided without saying a word— might go a long way toward spoiling something that was special, and beautiful, by virtue of its strangeness and delicacy.
— Stephen King, The Green Mile
This proves the significance of individualism; being able to face the music, to embrace it, and then create something beautiful from it. You can’t truly be happy unless you’re unhappy sometimes and the pinnacle of life can only be reached when one can carve their own path.
— Nadège Richards
Death, is a beautiful conclusion to these short stories, that which we have so interestingly entitled, lives.
— Kiar
True beauty express itself automatically. It's not only visible in the material, but around one's being, and within their aura. I once met a female, who was like that of a jeweled flower. Her celestial atmosphere and genuine conception could not separate from the true expression of the definition of beauty.
— Lionel Suggs
We celebrate beauty in life and all its possibility so we open it up for others and at the same time for ourselves.
— Jay Woodman
I gripped against her like she was metal and I was all full of lightning, charged up and jagged and of that moment alone.
— Chris   Howard, Rootless
Fireworks made of glass. An explosion of dew. Crescendo. Diminuendo. Silence.There are drugs that work the same, and while I am not suggesting that our founder purchased the glassworks to get more drops, it is clear that she had the seed planted, not once, but twice, and knew already the lovely contradictory nature of glass and she did not have to be told, on the day she saw the works at Darling Harbour, that glass is a thing in disguise, an actor, is not solid at all, but a liquid, that an old sheet of glass will not only take on a royal and purplish tinge but will reveal its true liquid nature by having grown fatter at the bottom and thinner at the top, and that even while it is as frail as the ice on a Parramatta puddle, it is stronger under compression than Sydney sandstone, that it is invisible, solid, in short, a joyous and paradoxical thing, as good a material as any to build a life from.
— Peter Carey
She looked... She looked young, and- and--" I glanced down at Rossana gazing up at me, lips parted, eyes shining, her hair loose around her shoulders, and the next words I spoke were intended with no artifice at all. "She is almost as beautiful as you." There was laughter, and I looked up, confused. "If you wish to pay court to my daughter, Matteo, you must first speak to me," Captain dell'Orte said in mock severity. Rossana's face colored pink."Elizabetta is also very beautiful," I said quickly, thinking to cover any embarassment, but also because it was true. The adults roared with laughter. "Now Matteo seeks to woo both girls with one compliment.
— Theresa Breslin, The Medici Seal
I learned from her that every woman is worriedabout her looks, no matter how beautiful she is.
— Richard Feynman, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character
You will be a beautiful person, as long as you see the beauty in others.
— Bryant McGill
So, I guess that's what happens, when you fall in love with that perfect someone you just never want to fall out, because they treat you right, you know, like they give you kisses and they remind you of how beautiful you are, and how sweet you make them feel, and they do all kinds of things just to see you smile.
— Abraham M. Alghanem, Summer and Autumn
As they grew sloppier and less alert, the twins argued too loudly about whether Tiger Lily was ugly or beautiful, and finally agreed that she was "ugly beautiful".Tiger Lily pretended she hadn't heard, but her heart slowed to absorb the blow.
— Jodi Lynn Anderson, Tiger Lily
Time flies with you
— Mitch Albom, The Time Keeper
Black as night and as beautiful as forever.
— Stephen King, Everything's Eventual: 14 Dark Tales
The little island seemed to float on the dark lake-waters. Trees grew on it, and a little hill rose in the middle of it. It was a mysterious island, lonely and beautiful. All the children stood and gazed at it, loving it and longing to go to it. It looked so secret - almost magic.“Well,” said Jack at last. “What do you think? Shall we run away, and live on the secret island?”“Yes!” whispered all the children.“Let’s!
— Enid Blyton, The Secret Island
Do I love you because you're beautiful, or are you beautiful because I love you? Am I making believe I see in you, a woman too perfect to be really true? Do I want you because you're wonderful, or are you wonderful because I want you? Are you the sweet invention of a lover's dream, or are you really as beautiful as you seem?
— Oscar Hammerstein II, Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella
She was--I keep using the past tense; I ought to say she is--one of those people who, at first sight, look plain, are quiet, unassertive, unmemorable even. But who, when they start to talk and you get to know them, become more and more attractive and impressive, and you see that in fact they are beautiful. Not conventionally beautiful, not celebrity beautiful, but beautiful all through.
— Aidan Chambers, Dying to Know You
This womens skin is shimmering and pale, her long black hair is tied with dozens of silver ribbons that fall over her shoulders. Her gown is white, covered in what to Bailey looks like looping black embroidery, but as he walks closer he sees that the black marks are actually words written across the fabric. When he is near enough to read parts of the gown, he realizes that they are love letters, inscribed in handwritten text. Words of desire and longing wrapping around her waist, flowing down the train of her gown as it spills over the platform. The statue herself is still, but her hand is held out and only then does Bailey notice the young woman with a red scarf standing in front of her, offering the love letter-clad statue a sungle crimson rose.The movement is so subtle that it is almost undetectable, but slowly, very, very slowly, the statue reaches to accept the rose.Her fingers open, and the young woman with the rose waits patiently as the statue gradually closes her hand around the stem, releasing it only when it is secure.....The statue is lifting the rose, gradually, to her face. Her eye lids slowly close.
— Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus
If you took the world away and just left the elctricity, it would look like the most exquisite filigree ever made - a ball of twinkling silver lines with the occasional coruscating spike of a satellite beam. Even the dark areas would glow with radar and commercial radio waves. It could be the nervous system of a great beast.
— Terry Pratchett, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
She is a beautiful creature, but beauty doesn't equal good and it certainly doesn't equal sane.
— Carrie Jones, Endure
She was a keen observer, a precise user of language, sharp-tongued and funny. She could stir your emotions. Yes, really, that's what she was so good at - stirring people's emotions, moving you. And she knew she had this power...I only realized later. At the time, I had no idea what she was doing to me.
— Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
Funny hoe everything can change in an instant. From death to life. From empty to full. From darkness to light.  Or maybe I just wasn't looking. I hadn't known that light could be a feeling and sound could be a color and a kiss could be both a question and an answer. And that heaven could be the ocean or a person or this moment or something else entirely.
— Megan Miranda, Fracture
Lies cannot nourish or protect you. Only freedom from fear, freedom from lies, can make us beautiful, and keep us safe.
— Anne Lamott, Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith
I think she is beautiful, but in a way that is not friendly, like in a way that just makes me want her to be mine.
— Abraham M. Alghanem, Summer and Autumn
At moments of great enthusiasm it seems to me that no one in the world has ever made something this beautiful and important.
— M.C. Escher
Be patient, darling, and try to trust both your heavenly and your earthly father. You know that no trial can come to you without your heavenly Father's will, and that He means this for your good. Look to Him and he will help you to bear it, and send relief in His own good time and way.
— Martha Finley, Elsie's Girlhood
...I remember the oily smoke of a cigarette suspended in a shaft of sunlight - with you, everything was beautiful...
— John Geddes
Kane wondered if any man in her life had really noticed how beautiful she was.
— Dannika Dark, Closer
The world is being created and destroyed in this very moment.
— Paulo Coelho, Aleph
I have been mocked by beauty, too. But it was the beauty which cost me nothing that in the end turned upon me.
— Katherine Paterson, Of the Nightingales That Weep
...I hardly ever see your profile, but have I told you it's beautiful? - like the soft gentle lines of snow...
— John Geddes, A Familiar Rain
Stella scribbledin thick black textaacross half the pagesof my best storybook,filled with people who venturedwhere their hearts took them.Beautiful worlds beyond mine.
— Emma Cameron, Cinnamon Rain
He saw her right after the seventh-period bell rang. She seemed dressed for the sole purpose of blending in with the lockers, but she stood out, anyway. It didn’t matter that her wide blue eyes were narrowed or that her pretty mouth was twisted into a near snarl — she was blatantly beautiful. It was kind of sick the way Ed was preoccupied with beautiful girls these days.He felt a little sorry for her. (He was also preoccupied with finding ways of feeling sorry for people.) She was new and trying hard not to look it. She was confused and trying to look tough. It was endearing is what it was.
— Francine Pascal, Fearless
Death is a force, not a man in a horse
— Dry the River
She was beautiful, but her youth, the very awkwardness of her age, prevented her from flaunting it.
— Richard J.  O'Brien
I'll think about you every day. Part of me is scared that there will come a time when you don't feel the same way,that you'll somehow forget what we shared, so this is what I want to do. Wherever you are and no matter what's going on in your life, when it's the first night of the full moon-like it was the first time we met-I want you to find it in the nighttime sky. I want you to think about me and the week we shared, because wherever I am and no matter what's going on in my life, that's exactly what I'll be doing. If we can't be together, at least we can share that, and maybe between the two of us, we can make it last forever.
— Nicholas Sparks
She reminded me of the sea; the way she came dancing towards you, wild and beautiful, and just when she was almost close enough to touch she'd rush away again.
— Glenda Millard, A Small Free Kiss in the Dark
Let's get something straight; you're not a piece of shit, you're amazing. It doesn't matter who buys me drinks, or who asks me to dance, or who flirts with me. I'm going home with you. You've asked me to trust you, and you don't seem to trust me. - Abby, Beautiful Disaster
— Jamie McGuire, Beautiful Disaster
If this is really it...if you're really done with me...will you let me hold you tonight? - Travis
— Jamie McGuire, Beautiful Disaster
My experiences remind me that it's those black clouds that make the blue skies even more beautiful.
— Kelly Clarkson
What a face this girl possessed!—could I not gaze at it every day I would need to recreate it through painting, sculpture, or fatherhood until a second such face is born. Her face, at once innocent and feral, soft and wild! Her mouth voluptuous. Eyes deep as oceans, her eyes as wide as planets. I likened her to the slender Psyché and judged that the perfection of her face ennobled everything unclean around her: the dusty hems of her bunched-up skirt, the worn straps of her nightshirt; the blackened soles of her tiny bare feet, the coal-stained balcony bricks upon which she sat, and that dusty wrought-ironwork that framed her perch. All this and the pungent air!—almost foul, with so many odors. Ô, that and the spicy night! …Pungency, spice, filth and night, dust and light; all things dark did blossom in sight; flower and bloom, the night has its pearl too—the moon! And once a month it will make the face of this tender girl bloom.
— Roman Payne
Remember that you don't owe anyone an apology. You are who you are, you have no choice, and that is beautiful.
— Emy Storey
I keep having the urge to cross my hands over my chest, to cover up my breasts, to hide. I'm suddenly aware of how pale I look in the sunshine, and how many moles I have spotting up and down my chest, and I just know he's looking at me thinking i'm wrong or deformed. But the he breathes, 'Beautiful' and when his eyes meet mine I know that he really, truly means it.
— Lauren Oliver, Delirium
Like how stars might sound. Or moons But not mountains. Too floaty for mountains. It's a sound like one planet singing to another, high stretched and full of different voices starting at different notes and sloping down to other different notes but all weaving together in a rope of sound that's sad but not sad and slow but not slow and all singing one word. One word.
— Patrick Ness, The Knife of Never Letting Go
Och, Sarah, how shall I call augh’ beautiful again unless it be the sight of you?
— Pamela Clare, Defiant
The sign of a true woman isn't the ability to recite French poetry or play the pianoforte or cook Chateaubriand. The sign of a true woman is learning to listen to her own voice even when society does its best to drown it out.
— Eve Marie Mont
He’d lapped at her ankles like a lovesick pup, and she’d been exactly what she was now, a woman born too beautiful and too rich to worry about a small thing like integrity.
— Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Ain't She Sweet
She knew all about love—that beautiful, exquisitely painful but precious journey.
— Mary Hart Perry, The Wild Princess: A Novel of Queen Victoria's Defiant Daughter
She said she wanted to see beautiful things. I took her to where i planted my seeds.
— Darnell Lamont Walker
I am dying: it's a beautiful word. Like the long slow sigh of a cello: dying. But the sound of it is the only beautiful thing about it.
— Sonya Hartnett, Surrender
Full of beautiful grace so we steal their space, and death comes quickly.
— Sara Quin
Beautiful breezes in ugly parts of town give hope to those who want to be free.
— Darnell Lamont Walker
The beautiful is powerless but always exceeds what frames it, and what always frames it is discourse.
— Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe, Beauty and the Contemporary Sublime
... I'll tell her about Tia. I'll tell her how beautiful she was and how brave. And I'll tell her the most important thing of all: that her mother loved her better than her life.
— Glenda Millard, A Small Free Kiss in the Dark
Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.
— William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
— Mark Twain
Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self Reliance
Always be a first rate version of yourself and not a second rate version of someone else.
— Judy Garland
Great men are not born great, they grow great . . .
— Mario Puzo, The Godfather
I used to walk down the street like I was a fucking star... I want people to walk around delusional about how great they can be - and then to fight so hard for it every day that the lie becomes the truth.
— Lady Gaga
To be great is to be misunderstood.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance and Other Essays
Be careful not to mistake insecurity and inadequacy for humility! Humility has nothing to do with the insecure and inadequate! Just like arrogance has nothing to do with greatness!
— C. JoyBell C.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
Its hard to be a diamond in a rhinestone world.
— Dolly Parton
Until you're ready to look foolish, you'll never have the possibility of being great. 
— Cher
Doing what needs to be done may not make you happy, but it will make you great.
— George Bernard Shaw
Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.
— Frank Herbert, Dune
Not everybody can be famous but everybody can be great, because greatness is determined by service.
— Martin Luther King Jr.
Those who have the ability to be grateful are the ones who have the ability to achieve greatness.
— Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free
I believe that the first test of a great man is his humility. I don't mean by humility, doubt of his power. But really great men have a curious feeling that the greatness is not of them, but through them. And they see something divine in every other man and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful.
— John Ruskin
Good and great are seldom in the same man. 
— Winston S. Churchill
The final proof of greatness lies in being able to endure criticism without resentment.
— Elbert Hubbard
Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Vir
— Thomas Jefferson
The greatness comes not when things go always good for you. But the greatness comes when you're really tested, when you take some knocks, some disappointments, when sadness comes. Because only if you've been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.
— Richard M. Nixon
Greatness is a property for which no man can receive credit too soon
—  it must be possessed long before it is acknowledged.
In our time no one has the conception of what is great. It is up to me to show them.
— Napoléon Bonaparte
People don't want to think. And the deeper they get into trouble, the less they want to think. But by some sort of instinct, they feel that they ought to and it makes them feel guilty. So they'll bless and follow anyone who gives them a justification for not thinking. Anyone who makes a virtue - a highly intellectual virtue - out of what they know to be their sin, their weakness and their guilt... They envy achievement, and their dream of greatness is a world where all men have become their acknowledged inferiors. They don't know that that dream is the infallible proof of mediocrity, because that sort of world is what the man of achievement would not be able to bear
— Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
If a man has any greatness in him, it comes to light, not in one flamboyant hour, but in the ledger of his daily work.
— Beryl Markham, West with the Night
Mithorden: 'He was brilliant, yes, but ready to laugh at himself when he made mistakes. You may not believe it, but he made mistakes often.'Luthiel: 'Why?' She choked around her tears.Mithorden: 'Because he tried to do great things. Anyone can succeed at easy things. But the things Valkire tried were very difficult. He wanted to make things better for people of all races -- for he saw the good in them.
— Robert Fanney
The firstsign of greatness is when a man does not attempt to look and actgreat. Before you can call yourself a man at all, Kipling assuresus, you must "not look too good nor talk too wise.
— Dale Carnegie, The Art of Public Speaking
Enlightenment is the transforming process that makes one kind, happy, and compassionate to the world. Enlightenment is bringing greatness in our ordinary life. Enlightenment is bringing beauty in our words, actions, breath and thoughts. Enlightenment is unfolding our true divinity. Enlightenment is bringing sweetness in our relationships. Enlightenment is making friendship with the whole existence. Enlightenment is making the whole existence as the center of our heart.
— Amit Ray, Enlightenment Step by Step
Some are born great. Some achieve greatness. Some get it as a graduation gift.
— Robin Williams
It's because I haven't courage,' said Samuel. 'I could never quite take the responsibility. When the Lord God did not call my name, I might have called his name - but I did not. There you have the difference between greatness and mediocrity. It's not an uncommon disease. But it's nice for a mediocre man to know that greatness must be the loneliest state in the world.''I'd think there are degrees of greatness,' Adam said.'I don't think so,' said Samuel. 'That would be like saying there is a little bigness. No. I believe when you come to that responsibility the hugeness and you are alone to make your choice. On one side you have warmth and companionship and sweet understanding, and on the other - cold, lonely greatness. There you make your choice. I'm glad I chose mediocrity, but how am I to say what reward might have come with the other? None of my children will be great either, except perhaps Tom. He's suffering over the choosing right now. It's a painful thing to watch. And somewhere in me I want him to say yes. Isn't that strange? A father to want his son condemned to greatness! What selfishness that must be.
— John Steinbeck, East of Eden
Those touchy mediocrities who sit trembling lest someone's work prove greater than their own - they have no inkling of the loneliness that comes when you reach the top. The loneliness for an equal - for a mind to respect and an achievement to admire.
— Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
Some people are born with a fire inside them. The will to succeed. It isn’t a learned behavior. It’s just some unknown biological factor that makes them try harder.
— J.A. Konrath, The List
In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted, for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things -- some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor -- who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.
— Barack Obama
Fame is a jealous mistressAnd will brook no rival.
— Thiruvalluvar, Kural
Every step gets him closer to greatness...or disaster.
— Jody Feldman, The Seventh Level
The excitement of opportunity and challenge inspires us to push for greatness.
— Lorii Myers, Targeting Success, Develop the Right Business Attitude to be Successful in the Workplace
Always to be right, always to trample forward, and never to doubt, are not these the great qualities with which dullness takes the lead in the world?
— William Makepeace Thackeray
A man's shortcomings are taken from his epoch
—  his virtues and greatness belong to himself.
A great chessplayer is not a great man, for he leaves the world as he found it.
— William Hazlitt, Table-Talk, Essays on Men and Manners
Those touchy mediocrities who sit trembling lest someone's work prove greater than their own - they have no inkling of the loneliness that comes when you reach the top. The loneliness for an equal - for a mind to respect and an achievement to admire...They envy achievement, and their dream of greatness is a world where all men have become their acknowledged inferiors. They don't know that that dream is the infallible proof of mediocrity, because that sort of world is what the man of achievement would not be able to bear.
— Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
Denys (Finch-Hatton) has been written about before and he will be written about again. If someone has not already said it, someone will say that he was a great man who never achieved greatness, and this will not only be trite, but wrong; he was a great man who never achieved arrogance.
— Beryl Markham, West with the Night
There is no one great man. Only millions of men and women in possession of tiny pieces of greatness, which when put together, when assembled in the aggregate make the whole. I am a piece of a very large jigsaw puzzle. One of the corner pieces. The one you go for first - important for a time, different from most of the others. But then, in the end, in the big picture, just one of many.
— Mark Dunn, Ibid
If a man has a capacity for great thoughts, he is likely to overtake them before he is decrepit.
— George Eliot, Middlemarch
Greatness is an opiate.
— Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity
A man’s greatness is neither determined by having great dreams nor by his determination to realize them; but by his contribution - however small may be - to the progression of the humanity, without forgetting other creatures as well!
— Mehmet Murat ildan
The herd seek out the great, not for their sake but for their influence; and the great welcome them out of vanity or need.
— Napoléon Bonaparte
I believe that we are all born for greatness yet most of us mire in the mediocrity of life. We become complacent or worse, discouraged and stagnate. We damn ourselves by not progressing.
— Toni Sorenson
Don't die a pauper, don't die a commoner and a weakling.
— Jaachynma N.E. Agu, The Prince and the Pauper