Howard Gardner Quotes

Beauty is that little something that fills the whole world, and is contained neither in a single straight nose, a long eyelash, nor a blue mountain. Some see it in a leg of mutton, others in a compound fracture; and to expect others to accept one's own definition of it is as absurd as to expect all humanity to use the same toilet-brush.

It's weird to me to see how different everyone's opinion of beauty is.

For me, life offers so many complexly appealing moments that two beautiful objects may be equally beautiful for different reasons and at different times. How can one choose?

I think making things beautiful is important. But often what's first considered ugly is beautiful, too.

Every man has a different idea of what's beautiful, and it's best to take the gesture, the shadow of the branch, and let the mind create the tree.

No facts, however indubitably detected, no effort of reason, however magnificently maintained, can prove that Bach's music is beautiful.

I'm not that obsessed with making representations of ugliness. Everything I've seen is beautiful.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

I think art is more glorious than life but not more real.

There are no actions involved in 'beautiful.' It's such an inactive thing, and it's so subject to each individual's taste and appreciation. It's a lovely word, but I feel like it's been hijacked by really boring, dull people who don't understand how to use words.

Style is objective, akin to art, so it varies.

My approach is simple. It is nothing other than what I am thinking at the time I make each piece of clothing, whether I think it is strong and beautiful. The result is something that other people decide.

His friends said, "Why do you have that ugly thing hanging there?" and Bull said, "I like it because it's ugly." All his life was in that line.

I think it's very pretty. Can it be pretty if no one thinks it's pretty? I think it's pretty. If you're the only one? That's pretty pretty. And what about the boys? Don't you want them to think you're pretty? I wouldn't want a boy to think I was pretty unless he was the kind of boy who thought I was pretty.

It is easier to be mistaken about the true than the beautiful.

Is beauty beautiful, or is it only our eyes that make it so?

To tell you the truth, I am rather perplexed by the concept of 'art'. What one person considers to be 'art' is often not 'art' to another. 'Beautiful' and 'ugly' are old-fashioned concepts that are seldom applied these days; perhaps justifiably, who knows? Something repulsive, which gives you a moral hangover, and hurts your ears or eyes, may well be art. Only 'kitsch' is not art - we're all agreed about that. Indeed, but what is 'kitsch'? If only I knew!

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so is ugliness.

Taste! It doesn't exist. An artist makes beautiful things without being aware of it.

Liking is not always the child of beauty; but whatsoever is liked, to the liker is beautiful.

Venus de Milo. To a child she is ugly. When a mind adjusts to thinking of her as a completeness, even though, by physiologic standards, incomplete, she is beautiful.

All is as beautiful as we think it.

Appreciation, whether of nature, or books, or art, or men, depends very much on temperament. What is beauty or genius or greatness to one, is far from being so to another.

What is beautiful for you may not be beautiful to someone else. Or whatever is beautiful here may not be beautiful there and what is sometimes beautiful today is not necessarily beautiful tomorrow. Perhaps this is the story of fashion and what makes it move forward, the fact that there is no decision whatsoever with what’s wrong.

People said making clothes inside out was not proper. I disagreed, because clothes that are inside out are as beautiful as a cathedral.