Most of these quotes are serious, others are humorous. Some I agree with, some I disagree with.
Beauty:
"Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised." - Proverbs 31:30
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate: / Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, / And summer's lease hath all too short a date." - Shakespeare, Sonnet 18:
"When he shall die, / Take him and cut him out in little stars, / And he will make the face of heaven so fine, / That all the world will be in love with night, / And pay no worship to the garish sun." - Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, act 3, scene 2
"A face to lose youth for, to occupy age / With the dream of, meet death with." - Robert Browning, "A Likeness"
"A beautiful face is a silent commendation." - Francis Bacon
"Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful we must carry it with us or we find it not." - Emerson, Essays xii. "Art"
"Rugged the breast that beauty cannot tame." - John Bampfylde
"To make our soul good and beautiful is to make ourselves like unto God: because God is beauty." - Plotinus
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty, - that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." - Keats
"If you get simple beauty and nought else, / You get about the best thing God invents." - Robert Browning
"Rhodora! If the sages ask thee why / This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, / Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, / Then Beauty is its own excuse for being." - R.W. Emerson, "The Rhodora"
It is told that once Ananda, the beloved disciple of Buddha, saluted his master and said: "Half the holy life, O master, is friendship with the beautiful, association with the beautiful, communion with the beautiful." "Say not so, Ananda, say not so!" the master replied. "It is not half of the holy life. It is the whole of the holy life."
"I have not much patience with a thing of beauty that must be explained to be understood. If it does need added interpretation by someone other than the creator, then I question whether it has fulfilled its purpose." - Charlie Chaplin
"I wish all people had what I begin to acquire gradually; the power to read a book without difficulty in a short time, and to keep a strong impression of it. It is with the reading of books the same as with looking at pictures; one must, without doubt, without hesitation, with assurance, admire what is beautiful." - Vincent Van Gogh
"There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion." - Francis Bacon
Belief:
Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?" She said to Him, "Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world." - John 11:25-27, New King James Bible
Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall not hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst." - John 6:35
Then they asked Him, "What must we do to do the works God requires?" Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one He has sent." - John 6:28-29
"When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. When he looks at me, he sees the one who sent me. I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness." - John 12:44-46
Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." - John 20:29
"All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that he has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him, may have eternal life; and I myself will raise him up on the last day." - John 6:37-40. New American Standard
"It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life." - John 6:63
"But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me." - John 5:45-46
"Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; Unbelief, in denying them." - Emerson, Representative Men: Montaigne
Betrayal:
"The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity." - Proverbs 11:3
"A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy man keeps a secret." - Proverbs 11:13
"If a man pays back evil for good, evil will never leave his house." - Proverbs 17:13
"...those whose teeth are swords and whose jaws are set with knives..." - Proverbs 30:14
"When you betray somebody else, you also betray yourself." - Isaac Bashevis Singer
"Thy friendship oft has made my heart to ache: / Do be my enemy - for friendship's sake." - William Blake
"All at once they leave you, and you know them!" - Robert Browning
"Cosmus duke of Florence was want to say of perfidious friends: 'That we read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends.'" - Francis Bacon
"There is nothing to believe in, so let us undermine everything. But look out! No scenes, no spoiling the game." "Never, by any chance, injure your fellow man openly. But always injure him secretly. Make a fool of him, and undermine his nature. Break him up by undermining him, if you can. It's good sport." "Mankind, like a horse, ridden by a stranger, smooth-faced, evil rider. Evil himself, smooth-faced and pseudo-handsome, riding mankind to the last break. Mankind no longer its own master. Ridden by this pseudo-handsome ghoul of outward loyalty, inward treachery, in a game of betrayal, betrayal, betrayal. The last of the gods of our era, Judas supreme!" - from D.H. Lawrence's St. Mawr
Bitterness:
"To have a grievance is to have a purpose in life. A grievance can almost serve as a substitute for hope; and it not infrequently happens that those who hunger for hope give their allegiance to him who offers them a grievance." - Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind
"We derive a certain satisfaction from being sinned against. It is not only that a grievance adds content to our lives, but also that it makes less monstrous the flame of malice which like a vigil light flickers in the dimness of our souls." - Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind
Blame:
"A wise man may frequently neglect praise, even when he has best deserved it; but, in all matters of serious consequence, he will most carefully endeavour so to regulate his conduct as to avoid, not only blame-worthiness, but, as much as possible, every probable imputation of blame." - Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, III.2.29
"I would much rather think that he had never been my enemy and consider it a misunderstanding, of which I take all the fault on myself, than argue about how much of it really is my fault, for I have not time left for such things." - Vincent Van Gogh
"Is there in this world a man so noble that he ever avoids all blame, even as a noble horse avoids the touch of the whip?" "This is an old saying, Atula, it is not a saying of today: 'They blame the man who is silent, they blame the man who speaks too much, and they blame the man who speaks too little.' No man can escape blame in this world." "But who would dare to blame the man whom the wise praise day after day, whose life is pure and full of light, in whom there is virtue and wisdom, who is pure as a pure coin of gold of the Jambu river? Even the gods praise that man, even Brahma the Creator praises him." - Dhammapada 143, 227, 229-230
"At all costs try to avoid granting yourself the status of the victim. Of all the parts of your body, be most vigilant over your index finger, for it is blame-thirsty. A pointed finger is a victim's logo - the opposite of the V sign and a synonym for surrender." "The moment that you place blame somewhere, you undermine your resolve to change anything." - Joseph Brodsky, commencement address, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1988
Blessings:
And when He saw the multitudes, He went up on the mountain; and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him. And opening His mouth He began to teach them, saying, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when men cast insults at you, and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely, on account of Me. Rejoice, and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you." - Matthew 5:1-12, New American Standard
And he turned him unto his disciples, and said privately, "Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see: For I tell you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them." - Luke 10:23-24, King James Version
Boasting:
"Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth." - Proverbs 27:1
the Body:
"Consider this body! A painted puppet with jointed limbs, sometimes suffering and covered with ulcers, full of imaginings, never permanent, for ever changing." "A house of bones is this body, bones covered with flesh and with blood. Pride and hypocrisy dwell in this house and also old age and death." - Dhammapada 147, 150
Boldness:
"The wicked man flees though no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion." - Proverbs 28:1
"In civil business; what first? boldness; what second and third? Boldness: and yet boldness is a child of ignorance and baseness." "Boldness is an ill keeper of promise." - Francis Bacon
"Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful." - Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, act 3, scene 1
Boredom:
"When people are bored, it is primarily with their own selves that they are bored. The consciousness of a barren, meaningless existence is the main fountainhead of boredom." - Eric Hoffer, The True Believer
"A bore is a fellow talker who can change the subject to his topic of conversation faster than you can change it back to yours." - Laurence Peter
Borrowing:
"Neither a borrower nor a lender be, / For loan oft loses both itself and friend, / And borrowing dulleth the edge of husbandry." - Shakespeare, Hamlet, act 1, scene 3
Bravery:
"Neither will it be, that a people overlaid with taxes should ever become valiant and martial." - Francis Bacon
"The better part of valor is discretion." - Shakespeare, King Henry IV, act 5, scene 4
"Tis not too late to-morrow to be brave." - John Armstrong
"The great scientist Alexis Carrel once said that the whole human race is carried on the backs of a few heroes. Almost every one of us is alive today only because, somewhere along his genealogical line, there was a hero: someone who in a pinch was brave beyond the call of duty, outstanding in patience or courage or the heroism of sticking-to-it." - Alan Devane, Minneapolis Sunday Tribune, 11/7/54
Brevity:
"Brevity is the soul of wit." - Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 2, scene 2
I would like to give credit to my Uncle James McManus, who first encouraged me to start a filing system which would allow me to keep facts and quotes in good order. Uncle Jim's files gave me my first batch of quotes, and I've used some of them here.