Quotes about Beauty

if there is no personal God, then the concept of beauty dissolves into personal idiosyncrasy. That is, unless beauty is rooted in God’s mind rather than your mind, every time you say, “That is beautiful,” all you really mean is, “I like that.” Unless there is a God, your praise of beauty can be no more than expressions of your own personal preferences. But I think there is in every one of you a dissatisfaction with the notion that your judgments about beauty have no more validity than your preference for coffee over tea. And I think your dissatisfaction with pure subjectivism and relativism is a remnant of God’s image in your soul and evidence of his reality. It is an echo, however faint, of a voice that once called you into being.

Why is it man and not the monkeys who decorated cave walls with pictures? Why is it that in every tribe of humans ever known there has always been some form of art and craftsmanship that goes beyond mere utility? Is it not because we long to behold and be a part of beauty?… There is in the human heart an unquenchable longing for beauty. And I am persuaded that the reason it is there is because God is the ultimately Beautiful One and he made us to long for Himself… Our desires are remnants of this urge for God because everything less than God leaves us unsatisfied. He alone is the All-Satisfying Object of Beauty. Only one vision will be sufficient for our insatiable hearts — the glory of God. For that we have been made. And it is for this we long, whether we know it or not.