“Whenever you participate in creating beauty, it is there; whenever you stop creating, it is not. Beauty is a creation; so is ugliness. Happiness is a creation; so is misery. You get only that which you create, and you never get anything else. That is the whole philosophy of karma: You get only that which you do. Life is just a blank canvas—you can paint a beautiful scene, a landscape, or you can paint black ghosts and dangerous people. It’s up to you. You can make a beautiful dream or a nightmare. Once this is understood, things are very simple. You are the master; it is your responsibility.”
Osho, Everyday Osho (Page 349)
“Wabi-sabi is a Japanese concept that shows us the beauty of the fleeting, changeable, and imperfect nature of the world around us. Instead of searching for beauty in perfection, we should look for it in things that are flawed, incomplete. This is why the Japanese palce such value, for example, on an irregular or cracked teacup. Only things that are imperfect, incomplete, and ephemeral can truly be beautiful, because only those things resemble the natural world.”
Héctor García and Francesc Miralles, Ikigai (Page 172)
“I think of beauty as an absolute necessity. I don’t think it’s a privilege or an indulgence, it’s not even a quest. I think it’s almost like knowledge, which is to say, it’s what we were born for. I think finding, incorporating and then representing beauty is what humans do. With or without authorities telling us what it is, I think it would exist in any case. The startle and the wonder of being in this place. This overwhelming beauty—some of it is natural, some of it is man-made, some of it is casual, some of it is a mere glance—is an absolute necessity. I don’t think we can do without it any more than we can do without dreams or oxygen.”
Toni Morrison
“We can gain a lot of clarity if we insert the right words into daily conversation. ‘That’s a good college,’ is more accurately stated as, ‘that’s a famous college.’ Or perhaps, ‘That person is beautiful,’ might be better as, ‘that person is conventionally beautiful.’ So many choices and measures seem obvious. But the obvious part might come from the fact that they are simply conventional and famous, not obvious or useful.”
Seth Godin
