Beauty ensnares hearts, captures minds, and stirs up emotional wildfires. From Plato to pinups, images of human beauty have catered to a limitless desire to see and imagine an ideal human form.

Physical beauty is like athletic skill: it peaks young.

throughout human history people have scarred, painted, pierced, padded, stiffened, plucked, and buffed their bodies in the name of beauty.

The idea that beauty is unimportant is the real beauty myth.

Beauty draws us in. We can't stop looking or listening or touching. It takes us outside ourselves and it motivates us. It's essential to life and to happiness.

In Brazil there are more Avon ladies than members of the army. In the United States more money is spent on beauty than on education or social services.

Beauty is equal parts flesh and imagination: we imbue it with our dreams, saturate it with our longings.