Beauty Myth

Famous quotes containing the words beauty and/or myth:

    For the first fourteen years for a rod they do whine,
    For the next as a pearl in the world they do shine,
    For the next trim beauty beginneth to swerve,
    For the next matrons or drudges they serve,
    For the next doth crave a staff for a stay,
    For the next a bier to fetch them away.
    Thomas Tusser (c. 1520–1580)

    One of the oddest features of western Christianized culture is its ready acceptance of the myth of the stable family and the happy marriage. We have been taught to accept the myth not as an heroic ideal, something good, brave, and nearly impossible to fulfil, but as the very fibre of normal life. Given most families and most marriages, the belief seems admirable but foolhardy.
    Jonathan Raban (b. 1942)