The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago... had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human hands.
Havelock EllisRead
The absence of flaw in beauty is itself a flaw.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Perfection in beauty can be seen as an unattainable ideal, suggesting that imperfection adds depth and character.
Havelock Ellis's quote suggests that true beauty is not found in a flawless appearance but in the uniqueness and imperfections that make something or someone real and relatable. The idea proposes that striving for absolute perfection detracts from the authenticity of beauty, and that it is often the flaws and variations that make beauty resonate on a deeper level.
Themes
BeautyFlawImperfectionPhilosophyAuthenticity
In practice
Example use cases
Sharing this quote during a talk about self-acceptance.
More from Havelock Ellis
All quotes βLife is livable because we know that wherever we go most of the people we meet will be restrained in their actions towards us by an almost instinctive network of taboos.
Havelock EllisRead
To live remains an art which everyone must learn, and which no one can teach.
Havelock EllisRead
Every man of genius sees the world at a different angle from his fellows, and there is his tragedy.
Havelock EllisRead
It is on our failures that we base a new and different and better success.
Havelock EllisRead
It is becoming clear that the old platitudes can no longer be maintained, and that if we wish to improve our morals we must first improve our knowledge.
Havelock EllisRead
Similar quotes
Every thinker puts some portion of an apparently stable world in peril.
John DeweyRead
The ultimate goal of theology isn't knowledge, but worship. If our learning and knowledge of God do not lead to the joyful praise of God, we have failed. We learn only that we might laud, which is to say that theology without doxology is idolatry. The only theology worth studying is a theology that can be sung!
Sam StormsRead
...she knew in her heart that nature has a preference for a particular order: parents die, then children die. But it was a harsh design, offering little relief from pain, for being in accord with it means that the fortunate find themselves orphaned.
Charles FrazierRead
One certainty we all accept is the condition of being uncertain and insecure.
Doris LessingRead
All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat myself. Surely a curious thing. That I should innocently take a bad half-crown of somebody else's manufacture, is reasonable enough; but that I should knowingly reckon the spurious coin of my own make, as good money!
Charles DickensRead
Anything's possible in Human Nature," Chacko said in his Reading Aloud voice. Talking to the darkness now, suddenly insensitive to his little fountain-haired niece. "Love. Madness. Hope. Infinite joy." Of the four things that were Possible in Human Nature, Rahel thought that Infinnate Joy sounded the saddest. Perhaps because of the way Chacko said it. Infinnate Joy. With a church sound to it. Like a sad fish with fins all over.
Arundhati RoyRead