a beauty of the strange and a beauty of the familiar

There is a beauty of the strange and a beauty of the familiar. The traveler to far places is enchanted because what he sees is new. If he found himself obliged to live forever in some quaint hamlet, the picturesqueness that intrigued him with its novelty would be likely to become his prison. The test of beauty is whether it can survive close knowledge. This is as true of persons as of places. The dancer, dazzling behind the footlights, may in ordinary living be so dull, so unkind, so fractious, that her smooth limbs and lovely face are lost in the immediacy of her spiritual unloveliness. On the other hand, a very plain woman or an ugly man may receive a deep devotion, because the known qualities of mind and spirit are beautiful, and this familiar beauty lies like a soft veil over any physical inadequacies.

Majorie Kinnan Rawlings

Cross Creek. 1942. Mockingbird Books Inc. p.186

the meaning of glory

From the work of man at its best I can learn the meaning of beauty, but only from the work of God can I learn the meaning of glory.

The Lord’s Question: Thoughts on the Life of Response by Dennis Rasmussen. Brigham Young University Press. April 1985. Chapter Two, “Do Not I Fill Heaven and Earth?” p.17

nowhere else in the world

The splendor of Havasupai’s falls and travertine pools is exclusive to Havasu Canyon – a spectacular oasis in a stretch of parched desert wilderness. Nowhere else in the world will you find the abundance, accessibility, and stunning beauty of the falls and pools of Havasupai.



Exploring Havasupai by Greg Witt, Menasha Ridge Press. 2010. p. 105

this Christmas...

This Christmas, mend a quarrel. Seek out a forgotten friend. Dismiss suspicion and replace it with trust. Write a letter. Give a soft answer. Encourage youth. Manifest your loyalty in word and deed. Keep a promise. Forgo a grudge. Forgive an enemy. Apologize. Try to understand. Examine your demands on others. Think first of someone else. Be kind. Be gentle. Laugh a little more. Express your gratitude. Welcome a stranger. Gladden the heart of a child. Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the earth. Speak your love and then speak it again.

Howard W. Hunter, "The Gifts of Christmas", Ensign, Dec. 2002, 16

attention to beauty

This next house, which he’d worked on for years… was as stately and gorgeous a home as existed in New Orleans. High ceilings, a grand winding staircase descending into the foyer, hand-carved everything, each room themed with a distinct character. Zeitoun had painted and repainted probably every room in the house, and the owners showed no signs of stopping. He loved to be in that house, admiring the craftsmanship, the great care put into the most eccentric details and flourishes – a mural over the mantel, one-of-a-kind ironwork on every balcony. It was this kind of willful, wildly romantic attention to beauty – crumbling and fading beauty needing constant attention – that made this city so unlike any other and such an unparalleled sort of environment for a builder.

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers. Random House. 2010.

a great beauty secret

We have been taught that “the gift of the Holy Ghost … quickens all the intellectual faculties, increases, enlarges, expands and purifies all the natural passions and affections. … It inspires virtue, kindness, goodness, tenderness, gentleness and charity. It develops beauty of person, form and features.” Now, that is a great beauty secret!... Alma asks a penetrating question for each of us to consider: “Have [you] received his image in your countenances?”

Recently, a group of young women visited my office. At the end of the visit, one young woman confided with tears in her eyes, “I have never thought of myself as beautiful. I have always felt very ordinary. But today, as I walked past the mirror in your office and glanced into it, I was beautiful!” She was beautiful because her face shone with the Spirit. She saw herself as our Heavenly Father sees her. She had received His image in her countenance. That is deep beauty.



Elaine S. Dalton, "Remember Who You Are!" General Young Women Meeting, April 2010

wildness is a mystique

Wilderness, or wildness, is a mystique. A religion, an intense philosophy, a dream of ideal society – these are also mystiques.... As the fisherman depends upon the rivers, lakes, and seas, and the farmer upon the land for his existence, so does mankind in general depend upon the beauty of the world about him for his spiritual and emotional existence.


Ansel Adams, as quoted in A Century of Sanctuary: The Art of Zion National Park By Robert Redford, Peter H. Hassrick, Lyman Hafen, Deborah Reeder, Leslie Courtright, Roland Lee, Erica Cottam. University of Utah Press, 2008. p.108

forced to make it ugly

Then commenced the long period which Max Jacob has called the Heroic Age of Cubism, and it was an heroic age. All ages are heroic, that is to say there are heroes in all ages who do things because they cannot do otherwise and neither they nor the others understand how and why these things happen. One does not ever understand, before they are completely created, what is happening and one does not at all understand what one has done until the moment when it is all done. Picasso said once that he who created a thing is forced to make it ugly. In the effort to create the intensity and the struggle to create this intensity, the result always produces a certain ugliness, those who follow can make of this thing a beautiful thing because they know what they are doing, the thing having already been invented, but the inventor because he does not know what he is going to invent inevitably the thing he makes must have its ugliness.


Picasso by Gertrude Stein. Courier Dover Publications. 1984. p.9

beauty means truth

By beauty of course I mean the truth, for the one involves the other; it is only the false in art which is ugly, and it is only the false which is immoral.


W.D. Howles, Novel-Writing and Novel-Reading, An Impersonal Explanation, 1899.

I have found that all ugly things are made by those who strive to make something beautiful, and that all beautiful things are made by those who strive to make something useful.


Oscar Wilde, The Value of Art in Modern Life (1884).

Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.


Abraham Lincoln - (1809-1865), U.S. president. Quoted in: John Hay, Lincoln and the Civil War in the Diaries and Letters of John Hay (ed. by Tyler Dennett, 1939), entry for 23 Dec. 1863, said in a dream in reply to one who had called Lincoln "common looking." Lincoln's words on this occasion have also been given as, "The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is the reason He makes so many of them." Quoted in: James Morgan, Our Presidents, ch. 6 (1928).

made the cactus in his own image

If God would choose a plant to represent him, I think he would choose of all plants the cactus. The cactus has all the blessings he tried, but mostly failed, to give to man. Let me tell you how. It has humility, but it is not submissive. It grows where no other plant will grow. It does not complain when the sun bakes it back or the wing tears it from the cliff or drowns it in the dry sand of the desert or when it is thirsty. When the rain comes it stores water for the hard times to come. In good times and in bad it will still flower. It protects itself against danger, but it harms no other plant. It adapts perfectly to almost any environment. It has patience and enjoys solitude. In Mexico there is a cactus that flowers only once every hundred years and at night. This is saintliness of an extraordinary kind, would you not agree? The cactus has properties that heal the wounds of men and from it come potions that can make man touch the face of God or stare into the mouth of hell. It is the plant of patience and solitude, love and madness, ugliness and beauty, toughness and gentleness. Of all plants, surely God made the cactus in his own image? It has my enduring respect and is my passion.


Doc's speech to Peekay's born-again Christian mother in The Power of One By Bryce Courtenay 518 pages. Random House.

The common tasks are beautiful if we have eyes to see their shining ministry.

Grace Noll Crowell