English romantic poet John Keats wrote “Beauty is truth, truth beauty; that is all”. While the statement is easily understood it actually says a great deal while saying very little. Anatole France thought beauty was “more profound than truth itself.”

If you look up definitions of beauty what is found are descriptions such as:

* Quality perceived which gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind arising from sensory manifestations such as harmony of form, gracefulness, pleasing shape, meaningful design or pattern.

* A combination of qualities that pleases the aesthetic senses, the intellect, or moral sense; preceptions which pleasurably exalt the mind or spirit; sensing excellence of artistry, truthfulness, and originality.

In an article in National Geographic Cathy Newman wrote: Define beauty? One may as well dissect a soap bubble. We know it when we see it or so we think. Philosophers frame it as a moral equation. What is beautiful is good, said Plato. Poets reach for the lofty such as Kahlil Gibran who said “beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart”. 

Blogger Janiel928 made a list of fifteen things she considered beautiful: my husband’s laugh, butterflies, sunsets, music, snow, baby animals, fireworks, flowers, good food, the beach, sound of owls, night sky, hummingbirds, books, and cats. Another wrote the five most beautiful things in the world are “falling in love, the ocean, sky filled with stars, laughing and peace.

A writer’s list on-line of the most beautiful places in the world included sunset at the Taj Mahal, Skywalk at the Grand Canyon, the Matterhorn, the Northern Lights, view of New York from the Empire State Building and Antarctic glaciers.

It’s impossible to pick just one most beautiful work of art. While Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel or statue of David could certainly be in the running, so could De Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” or any number of Rembrandt’s work. Then there’s Renoir, Gauguin, Warhol, Dali, Monet, Matisse, Picasso or even Rockwell and Remington. Van Gogh said, “The most beautiful paintings are those which you dream about… but which you never paint”.

In conversation of a group of people there will never be full agreement on who wrote the most beautiful music whether it was created by Mozart or Brahms, The Beatles or the Moody Blues, Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin, Garth Brooks or Reba McEntire, Henry Mancini or Duke Ellington, Nirvana or REM, Charlie Parker or Billie Holiday or many others. What’s beautiful in music is no different than any other art form: it’s a uniquely personal thing.

Who is the most beautiful man or woman living today? …that has ever lived? From a spiritual sense some would say Jesus while others say Mohaummed and still other’s response would be Buddha or another. 

Whatever the criteria, it is impossible to answer universally who/what is most beautiful because the answer varies with the person doing the choosing. Carole Bayer Sager asked the question “What is the most beautiful flower? the most beautiful song, voice, etc?” She then answered “Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder; there is no one answer”.

I am grateful for the great beauty in my life in all forms and shapes in comes in. There is so much of it even while my vision of what is beautiful is different from anyone else’s.  I have grown to appreciate more and more what I preceive as having beauty, but I still don’t appreciate it enough.

About ten years ago I vowed to at least once each day to stop down for a few seconds to truly notice something beautiful and really “see” it. I am grateful for the reminder to restore my habit to consistency.  It well known to me that doing so makes a sizeable different in the quality of my life!

The best and most beautiful things in the world
cannot be seen or even touched.
They must be felt with the heart.
Helen Keller