Gracefulness

Gracefulness, or being graceful, is the physical characteristic of displaying "grace", in the form of elegant movement, poise, or balance. The etymological root of grace is the Latin word gratia from gratus, meaning pleasing. Gracefulness has been described by reference to its being aesthetically pleasing.

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Quotes are arranged alphabetically by author

• Women wish to be loved without a why or a wherefore; not because they are pretty, or good, or well-bred, or graceful, or intelligent, but because they are themselves.
  • Henri Frederic Amiel, When a Woman Meets Jesus: Finding the Love Every Woman Longs For, Dorothy Valcarcel, p. 17.

• Eagles: When they walk, they stumble. They are not what one would call graceful. They were not designed to walk. They fly. And when they fly, oh, how they fly, so free, so graceful. They see from the sky what we never see.
  • Anonymous, His Hope for Your Destiny: Soaring Above the Storms, Tate Publishing, 1 March 2009, p. 198.

• Everyone is like a butterfly, they start out ugly and awkward and then morph into beautiful graceful butterflies that everyone loves.
  • Drew Barrymore, in Richard Schrand Practical Poser 8: The Official Guide, Cengage Learning, 2011, p207.

• Gracefulness is not imposed from without but generated from within. Gracefulness is 'the immateriality which . . . passes into matter.' In this formulation, the soul, or what Bergson elsewhere calls the élan vital, the life force, shapes the matter that contains it. The soul is not immobilized by matter, as it is in comedy, but remains infinitely supple and perpetually in motion.
  • Henry Bergson, in Alan Ackerman Seeing Things: From Shakespeare to Pixar, University of Toronto Press, 20 August 2011, p. 84
  • The organic form of drama is most clearly suggested in Bergson's use of the word 'gracefulness' [la grâce].

• Gracefulness is an idea not very different from beauty; it consists of much the same things. Gracefulness is an idea belonging to posture and motion. In both these, to be graceful, it is requisite that there be no appearance of difficulty; there is required a small inflection of the body; and a composure of the parts in such a manner, as not to encumber each other, not to appear divided by sharp and sudden angles. In this ease, this roundness, this delicacy of attitude and motion, it is that all the magic of grace consists, and what is called its je ne sçai quoi; as will be obvious to any observer, who considers attentively the Venus de Medicis, the Antinous, or any statue generally allowed to be graceful in an high degree.
  • Edmund Burke, On the Sublime and Beautiful, ebooks.adelaide, 12 March 2014.

• There is no true gracefulness which is not epitomized goodness.
  • Samuel Butler, in Meera Malhotra Orient Book Of Quotations, Orient Paperbacks, 1 March 2005, p. 87.

• The cello is like a beautiful woman who has not grown older, but younger with time, more slender, more supple, more graceful.
  • Pablo Casals, in Daniel E. Stanton, Edward F. Stanton Contemporary Hispanic Quotations, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003, p. 35.

• The beauty of flames lies in their strange play, beyond all proportion and harmony. Their diaphanous flare symbolizes at once grace and tragedy, innocence and despair, sadness and voluptuousness. The burning transcendence has something of the lightness of great purifications. I wish the fiery transcendence would carry me up and throw me into a sea of flames, where, consumed by their delicate and insidious tongues, I would die an ecstatic death. The beauty of flames creates the illusion of a pure, sublime death similar to the light of dawn. Immaterial, death in flames is like a burning of light, graceful wings. Do only butterflies die in flames? What about those devoured by the flames within them?
  • Emile M. Ciora, On the Heights of Despair, University of Chicago Press, 15 June 1992, p. 88.

• I became a spiritual ballerina. I was as graceful as a swan or any professional ballerina that danced professionally. The prayer card remained in my hand and it went on a wild ride as my hand would sway this way and that. I was so overwhelmed by what the Spirit was doing through me that I could only weep.
  • Linda Edwards, Hearing Eyes, Xulon Press.

• Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but until they speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful.
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature and Other Essays, Courier Dover Publications, 12 March 2012, p. 117.

• Betula albosinensis Chinese Birch, ultimately makes a 15 metre (50ft) graceful tree with glossy green leaves turning golden yellow in the autumn.
  • John Freeman, in Create Your Own Woodland Garden, Dreamstairway Books, 2010, p,45.

• Dancing as education, understood by the Greeks, today is coming to the fore again. With limbs less supple, but more powerful than a woman's, a male dancer's virile leaps are every bit as graceful as a ballerina's.
  • Arnold L. Haskell, The Wonderful World of Dance, 1960, p. 76.

• Gracefulness has been defined to be the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul.
  • William Hazlitt, Rumba Dance Encyclopedi: And Related Dances, AuthorHouse, 2009, p. 92.

• She was a woman who, between courses, could be graceful with her elbows on the table.
  • Henry James, The Ambassadors, Arc Manor LLC, 1 December 2008, p. 178.

• A gymnast can be as graceful as a ballerinaand as appealing as a model in a perfume ad.
  • Life (magazine), in Susan K. Cahn Coming on Strong: Gender and Sexuality in Twentieth-century Women's Sport, Harvard University Press, 1995, p. 219

• At three years old it [Palm Tree] begins to bear long bunches of orange-coloured fruit, which, contrasting with the deep rich hue of the leaves, adds the charm of colour to that of gracefulness of form.
  • Sophy Moody, in The Palm Tree, 1864, p. 88-89.

• The only true retirement is that of the heart; the only true leisure is the repose of the passions. To such persons it makes little difference whether they are young or old; and they die as they have lived, with graceful resignation.
  • Thomas De Quincey, in George Benjamin Woods English Poetry and Prose of the Romantic Movement, Scott, Foresman, 1916, p.

• There are two thousand of them constantly gliding back and forth through the canals, as noiseless as a ghost and as graceful as a swan.
  • John E. Ray, in A Trip Abroad: Sketches of Men and Manners, People and Places, in Europe, Edwards, Broughton, 1882 , p. 107.

• Gracefulness is to the body what understanding is to the mind.
  • Francois de La Rochefoucauld, Share Your Quotes, IQuotations Book

• He remembered the gracefulness with which she moved in battle—like liquid flesh. There was no one quite like his wife, and he never felt more triumphant and free than when he was in her company.
  • Nadia Scrieva, in Sacred Breath Boxed Set (Books 1-4), Nadia Scrieva, p. 320.

• The swan is somewhat like a duck but much more graceful and wonderful than a duck.
  • Jane Sun, in Multi-Functional English-Chinese Dictionary, Strategic Book Publishing, 2009, p. 204.

• Words to intrigue, inspire, examine, question, praise;
  Words to help us appreciate our world, our selves, our games;
  Words to dance our true soul fires gracefully free.
  • Julia (Jay) Woodman, in Love & Life, Radiance-Solutions.

• Grace
• Perfection