111 Aesthetic Quotes to Find Beauty In Unexpected Places

Aesthetic considerations are those regarding beauty, or the appreciation of it. When we refer to aesthetic beauty or pleasure, we may often think of something that appeals to the eye. But in truth, the term is also used in music, literature, gastronomy and beyond. Ultimately, it can describe anything able to awaken our deepest admiration.

Below are 111 aesthetic quotes that will help you find beauty in the most unexpected places.

Deep Aesthetic Quotes

Many people associate art with aesthetic. However, art is not always about beauty; it’s also subjective. The kind of art you like might appear boring, or even ugly, to others.

So the term "aesthetic" isn't limited to art. You can find beauty in something that others don’t. It’s your own perception that makes something beautiful in your eyes.

Here are some of the best deep aesthetic quotes to make you appreciate beauty even more.

"Beauty is how you feel inside, and it reflects in your eyes. It is not something physical." - Sophia Loren

"Should you shield the canyons from the windstorms, you would never see the true beauty of their carvings." - Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

"Nothing is beautiful, only man: on this piece of naiveté rests all aesthetics, it is the first truth of aesthetics. Let us immediately add its second: nothing is ugly but degenerate man – the domain of aesthetic judgment is therewith defined." - Friedrich Nietzsche

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

"Beauty is strangely various. There is the beauty of light and joy and strength exulting; but there is also the beauty of shade, of sorrow and sadness, and of humility oppressed." - Arnold Bennett 

"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." - Jun'ichirō Tanizaki

"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." - Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

"Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern." - Alfred North Whitehead

"Aesthetics have substantial political consequences. How one views oneself as beautiful or not beautiful or desirable or not desirable has deep consequences in terms of one’s feelings of self-worth and one’s capacity to be a political agent." - Cornel West

"I think that's what art is: art is communication made in the hope that interesting miscommunications will arise." - Misha Glouberman

"Aesthetics is both politics and philosophy, a series of agreements and disagreements between subjective minds." - Jimenez Lai

"I hate that aesthetic game of the eye and the mind, played by these connoisseurs, these mandarins who 'appreciate' beauty. What is beauty, anyway? There’s no such thing. I never 'appreciate,' any more than I 'like.' I love, or I hate." - Pablo Picasso

"To the man who loves art for its own sake, it is frequently in its least important and lowliest manifestations that the keenest pleasure is to be derived." - Arthur Conan Doyle

"Refinement creates beauty everywhere: it is the grossness of the spectator that discovers nothing but grossness in the object." - William Hazlitt

Short Quotes About Aesthetic Beauty

The key to effective communication is brevity. Below is a selection of aesthetic quotes that are brief, but powerful.

"Beauty is truth’s smile when she beholds her own face in a perfect mirror." - Rabindranath Tagore

"Beauty is the illumination of your soul." - John O'Donohue

"Our hearts are drunk with a beauty our eyes could never see." - George W. Russell

“Nothing's perfect, the world's not perfect. But it's there for us, trying the best it can; that's what makes it so damn beautiful." - Hiromu Arakawa

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." - Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

"Beauty is sometimes born of pain." - Sheri L. Swift

"Rules of taste enforce structures of power." - Susan Sontag

"Aestheticism is the garbage of intuitive feeling." - Kazimir Severinovich Malevich

"There is no cosmetic for beauty like happiness." - Lady Blessington

"Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic." - Oscar Wilde

"In so far as the mind sees things in their eternal aspect, it participates in eternity." - Baruch Spinoza

"Desire for beauty will endure and undermine the desire for truth." - Richard O. Prum

"Aesthetic freedom is like free speech; it is, indeed, a form of free speech." - George Edward Woodberry

"For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through." - Steve Jobs

"Styles may change, details may come and go, but the broad demands of aesthetic judgment are permanent." - Roger Scruton

"All aesthetic judgment is really cultural evaluation." - Susan Sontag

"An artist’s concern is to capture beauty wherever he finds it." - Kazuo Ishiguro

Inspirational Aesthetic Quotes

Anything that is beautiful can inspire us, but beauty comes in all shapes and forms. There’s beauty in the darkness of a night, in the light of a day, and in the madness of a person — as weird as that may sound.

The following inspirational quotes will remind you that beauty is more than meets the eye.

"After a certain high level of technical skill is achieved science and art tend to coalesce in aesthetics, plasticity, and form. The greatest scientists are artists as well." - Albert Einstein

"What is especially striking and remarkable is that in fundamental physics a beautiful or elegant theory is more likely to be right than a theory that is inelegant." - Murray Gell-Mann

"It’s better to have a hunger and appreciation for beauty than to be merely beautiful. In the end, life is richer that way. She may learn that." - Susan Vreeland

"At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint, or even remember it. It is enough." - Toni Morrison

"The aesthetic can have its revenge upon ideology by revealing a power to complicate that is also a power to undermine." - Murray Krieger

"Any great art work... revives and re-adapts time and space, and the measure of its success is the extent to which it makes you an inhabitant of that world - the extent to which it invites you in and lets you breathe its strange, special air." - Leonard Bernstein

"I think it's more accurate to think of aesthetics as a key ingredient in a recipe, as opposed to the icing on the cake." - Stephen P. Anderson

"I will try to account for the degree of my aesthetic emotion. That, I conceive, is the function of the critic." - Clive Bell

"I think sincerity was my sole aesthetic and realism my experimental technique." - Edmund White

Quotes About Life and Inspiration

No matter what you’re going through, you can always find something beautiful and inspiring to distract you. Art and beauty can be appreciated in strange and horrible and, yes, beautiful ways.

In that vein, we’ve gathered quotes about life that can help you leave your insecurities at the door, and indulge in your true artistic instincts.

"Man needs music, literature, and painting – all those oases of perfection that make up art – to compensate for the rudeness and materialism of life." - Fernando Botero

"Art is restoration: the idea is to repair the damages that are inflicted in life, to make something that is fragmented – which is what fear and anxiety do to a person – into something whole." - Louise Bourgeois

"When I think of art I think of beauty. Beauty is the mystery of life. It is not in the eye it is in the mind. In our minds there is awareness of perfection." - Agnes Martin

"I suppose there are a lot of reasons to be jaded or sarcastic or bitter in life, but I hang on to the reasons why life is beautiful." - Kelli O'Hara

"Life is abundant, and life is beautiful. And it’s a good place that we’re all in, you know, on this earth, if we take care of it." - Alice Walker

"Learn to enjoy every minute of your life. Be happy now. Don’t wait for something outside of yourself to make you happy in the future. Think how really precious is the time you have to spend, whether it’s at work or with your family. Every minute should be enjoyed and savored." - Earl Nightingale

"Peace is the beauty of life. It is sunshine. It is the smile of a child, the love of a mother, the joy of a father, the togetherness of a family. It is the advancement of man, the victory of a just cause, the triumph of truth." - Menachem Begin

"To be creative means to be in love with life. You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty, you want to bring a little more music to it, a little more poetry to it, a little more dance to it." - Osho

"Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky." - Rabindranath Tagore

"In the life of the individual, an aesthetic sensibility is both more authentic and more commendable than a political or religious one." - Tom Robbins

"It's hard to combine a simple life with a love of aesthetics." - Marty Rubin

"To so enter into it in nature and art that the enjoyed meanings of life may become a part of living is the attitude of aesthetic appreciation." - George Herbert Mead

"Design is a way of life, a point of view. It involves the whole complex of visual communications: talent, creative ability, manual skill, and technical knowledge. Aesthetics and economics, technology and psychology are intrinsically related to the process." - Paul Rand

"The fact that the colors in the flower have evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; that means insects can see the colors. That adds a question: does this aesthetic sense we have also exist in lower forms of life?" - Richard P. Feynman

"If the universal is the essential, then it is the basis of all life and art. Recognizing and uniting with the universal therefore gives us the greatest aesthetic satisfaction, the greatest emotion of beauty." - Piet Mondrian

"If you are living a life that feels right to you, if you're willing to take creative chances or a creative path that feels like it's mostly in keeping with your sensibilities, you know, aesthetic and artistic, then that's what matters." - Tracy Chapman

"One does afford oneself the luxury to come into the studio and all day, every day, spend one's life making aesthetic propositions. What an immense luxury." - Anish Kapoor

"Aesthetic matters are fundamental for the harmonious development of both society and the individual." - Friedrich Schiller

"It is just as important to set apart time for the development of our aesthetic faculties as for cultivating the money-getting instinct. A man cannot live by bread alone. His higher life demands an impalpable food." - Orison Swett Marden

"A Tagore surname signifies an association with aesthetics and all the best things of life. It's enriching both personally and professionally." - Sharmila Tagore

"What comes from sorrow, watered by tears, grows something of beauty. A salt garden. And so this I leave behind. A harvest for those who find their way into my life and I into theirs." - Cindy McCormick Martinusen

"But those who seek only reassurance from life will never be more than tourists — seeing everything and trying to possess what can only be felt. Beauty is the shadow of imperfection." - Simon Van Booy

"Of life’s two chief prizes, beauty and truth, I found the first in a loving heart and the second in a laborer’s hand." - Kahlil Gibran  

"The power of finding beauty in the humblest things makes home happy and life lovely." - Louisa May Alcott

"Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams." - Ashley Smith 

"There is nothing more beautiful than someone who goes out of their way to make life beautiful for others. " - Mandy Hale 

"There are some places so beautiful they can make a grown man break down and weep." - Edward Abbey

"When I started counting my blessings my whole life turned around." - Willie Nelson

Thoughtful Quotes About Finding Beauty

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart." - Helen Keller

"The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mode but the true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives the passion that she shows. The beauty of a woman grows with the passing years." - Audrey Hepburn

"Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass… It’s about learning to dance in the rain." - Vivian Greene

"Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them." - Marcus Aurelius

"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it." - Confucius

"I find beauty in the continual shaping of chaos which clearly embodies the primordial power of nature’s performance." - Iris van Herpen