37 Beauty Quotes that Will Inspire Your Day
We’ve all heard it before: “Beauty is only skin deep.” “True beauty is found on the inside.” “You’re beautiful just the way you are.” Beauty quotes like this have reached cliché level, and in a filtered world obsessed with Instagram and trends, it can be hard to take inner beauty quotes seriously. That’s why we pulled together some of the most genuine beauty quotes out there. Whether you need a poignant Instagram caption, you know a friend who needs cheering up, or you’re looking for a little inspiration yourself, these quotes are, well, beautiful! Share these inspiring words to make a friend’s day, or keep one posted on your mirror to remind yourself of the true meaning. These beauty quotes will make you stop and look for the pretty that’s around you (and in yourself!).
“That lack of beating up on ourselves—that’s my new mantra. Happiness is the best makeup; A smile is better than any lipstick you’ll put on.” Drew Barrymore
“Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.” David Hume, Of the Standard of Taste
“I’m comfortable in my own skin, no matter how far it’s stretched.” Dolly Parton
“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not. The best of beauty is a finer charm than skill in surfaces, in outlines, or rules of art can ever teach, namely a radiation from the work of art, of human character…” Ralph Waldo Emerson, from an essay, XII. Art
“Confidence is the only key. I know a lot of people who aren’t traditionally ‘beautiful’ — not symmetrical or perfect-bodied or perfect-skinned. But none of that matters because all that shines through is their confidence, humor and comfort with themselves. I can’t think of any better representation of beauty than someone who is unafraid to be herself.” Emma Stone, in an interview with YouBeauty
“We get so worried about being ‘pretty.’ Let’s be pretty kind, pretty funny, pretty smart, pretty strong.” Unknown
“Why change? Everyone has his own style. When you have found it, you should stick to it.” Audrey Hepburn
“To me, beauty is about being comfortable in your own skin. It’s about knowing and accepting who you are.” Ellen Degeneres, Seriously, I’m Kidding
“That’s the thing about inner beauty: Unlike physical beauty, which grabs the spotlight for itself, inner beauty shines on everyone, catching them, holding them in its embrace, and making them more beautiful, too.” Unknown
“The beautiful is always bizarre.” Charles Baudelaire, in 1855
“If you retain nothing else, always remember the most important Rule of Beauty. ‘Who cares?’” Tina Fey, Bossypants
"My go-to saying is that a privilege of a lifetime is being who you are, and I would tell my younger self exactly that—you are absolutely perfect the way you are. We need to stop that with girls. We need to stop saying that all of their value is in the way they look, and whether they're pretty or not. I hate it when people say things like, 'She has a lot going for her because she's beautiful.' But what else is she? Because by the time she's 65 and doesn't have that tight rear end anymore, then you're saying she has no value? That needs to stop. It's the most detrimental thing to suggest that's the only value you have." Viola Davis, to InStyle in 2016
“Be yourself today. You look good like that.” Unknown
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Death: The Final Stage of Growth
“Strive for beauty that can be felt, not just seen.” Unknown
“That’s always seemed so ridiculous to me, that people want to be around someone because they’re pretty. It’s like picking your breakfast cereals based on color instead of taste.” John Green, Paper Towns
“Beauty, to me, is about being comfortable in your own skin. That, or a kick-ass red lipstick.” Gwyneth Paltrow
“No matter how plain a woman may be, if truth and honesty are written across her face, she will be beautiful.” Eleanor Roosevelt
“Don’t be eye candy. Be soul food.” Unknown
“Some of the greatest poetry is revealing to the reader the beauty in something that was so simple you had taken it for granted.” Neil Degrasse Tyson, in a 2010 interview with Stephen Colbert
“Character. Intelligence. Strength. Style. That makes beauty.” Diane von Furstenberg, The Woman I Wanted to Be
“…beauty is life when
life unveils her holy face.
But you are life and you are the veil.
Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mir-
ror.
But you are eternity and you are the mir-
Ror.” Kahlil Gibran, an excerpt from On Beauty
“If only our eyes saw souls instead of bodies, how very different our ideas of beauty would be.” Unknown
“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.” Maya Angelou
“Exterior beauty without the depth of a kind soul is merely decoration.” Unknown
“The things that I find truly beautiful now are more subtle and rare but can access a depth of emotion that I didn’t even know existed in me. My mother’s hands scarred from years of pruning her own garden. The nape of my daughter’s neck. My son’s eyebrows, inherited from his grandfather. A selected line of a Mary Oliver poem. The way my husband looks at me as he enters our bed after we’ve survived another long day. My vanishing freckles.” Molly Ringwald, to Allure in March 2014
��Admire someone else’s beauty without questioning your own.” Unknown
“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness…” John Keats, Endymion, Book I, [A thing of beauty is a joy for ever]
“Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful. Beauty is God’s handwriting.” Charles Kingsley
“People are just as wonderful as sunsets if I can let them be. In fact, perhaps the reason we can truly appreciate a sunset is that we cannot control it. When I look at a sunset as I did the other evening, I don’t find myself saying, ‘Soften the orange a little on the right hand corner, and put a bit more purple along the base, and use a little more pink in the cloud color.’ I don’t do that. I don’t try to control a sunset. I watch it with awe as it unfolds.” Carl Ransom Rogers, A Way of Being
“The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.” Joseph Campbell, The Hero’s Journey (On Living in the World)
“Mirrors show us what we look like, not who we are.” Unknown
“…the best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen nor even touched, but just felt in the heart.” Helen Keller, in a June 8, 1891 letter to the Reverend Phillips Brooks, on words a teacher explained to her
“When you spend your days doing what fulfills you, you are attractive.” Thomas J. Leonard, The 28 Laws of Attraction: Stop Chasing Success and Let It Chase You
“Let your smile change the world, but don’t let the world change your smile.” Unkown
“There's nothing more inspiring than the complexity and beauty of the human heart.” Cynthia Hand, Hallowed: An Unearthly Novel
“There is certainly no absolute standard of beauty. That precisely is what makes its pursuit so interesting.” John Kenneth Galbraith, quoted in The New York Times Magazine, 1960
WATCH: Carrie Underwood Reminds Us All That Beauty Is Found In a Good Heart
Following a terrifying fall that required more than 40 stitches in her face, Carrie Underwood was reminded the true meaning of beauty. Read more of her story here.
