QuoteProject
No one hath seen beauty in its highest lustre who hath never seen it in distress.
Henry Fielding
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

True beauty is most appreciated after experiencing hardship or distress.

Henry Fielding's quote suggests that a full understanding and appreciation of beauty requires the experience of its contrast—distress. It implies that without recognizing the challenges or trials that beauty can face, one cannot fully comprehend its value or significance. This highlights the relationship between adversity and the deeper appreciation of life's more beautiful moments.

Themes

BeautyDistressAppreciationAdversityLife

In practice

Example use cases

In a motivational speech about overcoming challenges.

More from Henry Fielding

It is well known to all great men, that by conferring an obligation they do not always procure a friend, but are certain of creating many enemies.
Henry FieldingRead
It is not enough that your designs, nay that your actions, are intrinsically good, you must take care they shall appear so.
Henry FieldingRead
Let no man be sorry he has done good, because others concerned with him have done evil! If a man has acted right, he has done well, though along; if wrong, the sanction of all mankind will not justify him.
Henry FieldingRead
A newspaper consists of just the same number of words, whether there be any news in it or not.
Henry FieldingRead
He grew weary of this condescension, and began to treat the opinions of his wife with that haughtiuess and insolence, which none but those who deserve some contempt themselves can bestow, and those only who deserve no contempt can bear.
Henry FieldingRead
Now in reality, the world has paid too great a compliment to critics, and has imagined them to be men of much greater profundity than they really are.
Henry FieldingRead

Similar quotes

Hazard has conditioned us to live in hazard. All our pleasures are dependent on it. Even though I arrange for a pleasure, and look forward to it, my eventual enjoyment of it is still a matter of hazard. Wherever time passes, there is hazard.
John FowlesRead
This survival of the fittest implies multiplication of the fittest.
Herbert SpencerRead
I can tell you that solitude Is not all exaltation, inner space Where the soul breathes and work can be done. Solitude exposes the nerve, Raises up ghosts. The past, never at rest, flows through it.
May SartonRead
Everything is deception: seeking the minimum of illusion, keeping within the ordinary limitations, seeking the maximum. In the first case one cheats the Good, by trying to make it too easy for oneself to get it, and the Evil by imposing all too unfavorable conditions of warfare on it. In the second case one cheats the Good by keeping as aloof from it as possible, and the Evil by hoping to make it powerless through intensifying it to the utmost.
Franz KafkaRead
The bane of sects, especially in Bengal, is that if any one happens to have a different opinion, he immediately starts a new sect, he has no patience to wait.
Swami VivekanandaRead
We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness. We are monkeys with money and guns.
Tom WaitsRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.