Top 100 Famous Pearl Quotes and Sayings you Need to Know

There’s a reason women have coveted pearls for centuries. Not only are they beautiful, but they also have a ton of symbolism attached to them. In this post, we’ll look at some of the most inspirational pearl quotes. 

If you’re looking for a little bit of inspiration or want to learn more about these gems, here are some of the most famous pearl quotes and sayings you should know about.

Also see: What do Pearls Symbolize: Pearl Meaning Guide

Top 100 Inspirational Pearl Quotes

1. “The heart of man is very much like the sea, it has its storms, it has its tides and in its depths it has its pearls too” ― Vincent van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh
   
2. “I wish I was a woman of about thirty-six dressed in black satin with a string of pearls.” ― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca
   
3. “cause it’s a hard life, with love in the world. and i’m a hard girl, loving me is like chewing on pearls.” ― Lady Gaga, Lady Gaga: The Fame music book
   
4. “Sometimes when I’m alone, I take the pearl from where it lives in my pocket and try to remember the boy with the bread, the strong arms that warded off nightmares on the train, the kisses in the arena.” ― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay”
   
5.  “To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life.”― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables”
   
6. “All art is autobiographical; the pearl is the oyster’s autobiography.” ― Federico Fellini”
7. “My mother was an oyster,” he said with a wink. “And I’m the pearl.” ― Leigh Bardugo, Siege and Storm”
   
8. “Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite. Or waiting around for Friday night or waiting perhaps for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil or a better break or a string of pearls or a pair of pants or a wig with curls or another chance. Everyone is just waiting.” ― Dr. Seuss”
   
9. “The moon in her chariot of pearl” ― Oscar Wilde, The Nightingale and the Rose”
   
10. “Men have to have heroes, but no man can ever be as big as the need, and so a legend grows around a grain of truth, like a pearl.” ― Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn”
    
11. “The world is your oyster. It’s up to you to find the pearls.” ― Chris Gardner, The Pursuit of Happyness”
    
12. “Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow;

He who would search for pearls, must dive below.”

― John Dryden, All for Love”

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13. “Surely Love is a wonderful thing. It is more precious than emeralds, and dearer than fine opals. Pearls and pomegranates cannot buy it, nor is it set forth in the marketplace. It may not be purchased of the merchants, for can it be weighed out in the balance for gold.” ― Oscar Wilde, The Happy Prince
    
14. “Everyone is so afraid of death, but the real sufis just laugh: nothing tyrannizes their hearts. What strikes the oyster shell does not damage the pearl” ― rumi”
    
15. “You must reach inside yourselves where I live like a story, not old, not young laughing at my own sorrow, weeping pearls at weddings, wielding a torch to melt sand into something clear and bright.” ― Francesca Lia Block, The Rose and the Beast: Fairy Tales Retold”
    
16. “Then must you speak

Of one that loved not wisely but too well,

Of one not easily jealous but, being wrought,

Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand,

Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away

Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes,

Albeit unused to the melting mood,

Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees

Their medicinable gum. Set you down this,

And say besides that in Aleppo once,

Where a malignant and a turbaned Turk

Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,

I took by th’ throat the circumcised dog

And smote him thus.”

― William Shakespeare, Othello”

17. “Do you know what a pearl is and what an opal is? My soul when you came sauntering to me first through those sweet summer evenings was beautiful but with the pale passionless beauty of a pearl. Your love has passed through me and now I feel my mind something like an opal, that is, full of strange uncertain hues and colours, of warm lights and quick shadows and of broken music.” ― James Joyce, Selected Letters of James Joyce”
18. 
    “To love or have loved is all-sufficing. We must not ask for more. No other pearl is to be found in the shadowfolds of life. To love is an accomplishment.” ― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables”
    
19. “Advice to Young Journal Keepers. Be lenient with yourself. Conceal your worst faults, leave out your most shameful thoughts, actions, and temptations. Give yourself all the good and interesting qualities you want and haven’t got. If you should die young, what comfort would it be to your relatives to read the truth and have to say: It is not a pearl we have lost, but a swine?” ― Rosamond Lehmann, Invitation to the Waltz
    
20. “Coco Chanel used to talk about wearing more than one string of pearls. Why wear one if you can wear two, or something to that effect. I think that one string of pearls is just fine. But that’s because my pearls are black, hers were white.” ― C. JoyBell C.
    
21. “I wanted to wear the mantle and the pearls. I wanted to know the man who painted her like that.” ― Tracy Chevalier, Girl with a Pearl Earring
    
22. “We are the bird’s eggs. Bird’s eggs, flowers, butterflies, rabbits, cows, sheep; we are caterpillars; we are leaves of ivy and sprigs of wallflower. We are women. We rise from the wave. We are gazelle and doe, elephant and whale, lilies and roses and peach, we are air, we are flame, we are oyster and pearl, we are girls. We are woman and nature. And he says he cannot hear us speak.But we hear.” ― Susan Griffin, Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her
    
23. “You can rake the muck this way, rake the muck that way– it will always be muck. Have I sinned or have I not sinned? In the time I am brooding over it, I could be stringing pearls for the delight of Heaven” ― Martin Buber
    
24. “Change isn’t always for the worst; the shell that forms around a piece of sand looks to some people like an irritation., and to others, like a pearl.” ― Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s Keeper
    
25. “True beauty is measured by the number of pearls within you, not those around your neck.” ― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
    
26. “And one day, I’d love to see you dressed in nothing but pearls.” ― Kristen Proby, Come Away with Me
    
27. “The most extraordinary thing about the oyster is this. Irritations set into his shell. He does not like the. But when he cannot get rid of them, he uses the irritation to do the loveliest thing an oyster ever has a chance to do. If there are irritations in our lives today, there is only one prescription: make a pearl. It may have to be a pearl of patience, but anyhow, make a pearl. And it takes faith, and I love to do it” – Harry Emerson Fosdick.
28. “At root, a pearl is a disturbance, a beauty caused by something that isn’t supposed to be there, about which something needs to be done. It is the interruption of equilibrium that creates beauty. Beauty is a response to provocation, to intrusion. The pearl’s beauty is made as a result of insult.” – Julia Cameron.
29. “The liquid drips of tears that you have shed,

Shall come again transformed to orient pearl, 

Advantaging their loan with interest,

Oftentimes double the gain of happiness.” – William Shakespeare.

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30. “People don’t want to be bothered, and they’re not being pressured to change. You have to push people. You have to be the agitator that makes the pearl.” – Marlo Thomas.
    
31. “The beauty of form affects the mind, but it must be understood that it is not the mere shell that we admire; we are attracted to the idea that this shell is only a beautiful case adjusted to the shape ad value of a still more beautiful pearl within. The perfection of outward loveliness is the soul shining through its crystalline covering.” – Jane Porter. 
    
32. “Impressions are like pearls; ideas are like the string that turns the pearls into a necklace. The string is invisible, but it is not dispensable and cannot be broken.” – Mu Xin.
    
33. “The rarest things in the world, next to a spirit of discernment, are diamonds and pearls.” – Jean De La Bruyere. 
    
34. “There is just one piece of jewelry that is equally becoming to everybody, lovely with almost every ensemble, appropriate for almost any occasion, and indispensable in every woman’s wardrobe…long live the pearl necklace, true or false, from our first date until our last breath!”- Genevieve Antoine Dariaux.
    
35. “Life is made up of a few moments all strung together like pearls. Each moment is a pearl, and it is up to us to pick the ones with the highest lustre.” – Joyce Hilfer.
    
36. “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.” – Matthew 13:45-46
    
37. “A pearl is a beautiful thing that is produced by an injured life. If we had not been wounded, if we had not been injured, then we would not produce the pearl.” – Stephen Hoeller
    
38. “For memory, we use our imagination. We take a few strands of real time and carry them with us, then like an oyster, we create a pearl around then.” – John Banville.
    
39. “It’s funny how we are often misled as to which oyster houses a pearl – we must stop judging a soul on its vessel.” – Elizabeth Anna
    
40. “Collect as precious pearls the words of a wise and virtuous.” – Abdelkader EI Djezairi. 
    
41. “A poor man wants the oyster; a rich man wants the pearl.” – Elvis Presley.
    
42. “These pearls of thought in Persian gulfs were bred, each softly lucent as a rounded moon; The diver Omar plucked them from their bed, Fitzgerald strung them on an English thread.” – James Russell Lowell. 
    
43. “Fame is a pearl; many dives for and only a few bring up. Even when they do, it is not perfect, and they sign for more, and lose better things in struggling for them.” – Lousia May Alcott
    
44. “The first place and the topmost rank among all things of price is held by pearls…Their whole value lies in their brilliance, size, roundness, smoothness, and weight…There have been two pearls that were the largest in the whole of history; both were owned by Cleopatra.. they had come down to her through the hands of the kings of the East.” – Pliny. 
    
45. “As a pearl is formed and its layers grow, a rich iridescence begins to glow. The oyster has taken what was at first an irritation and intrusion and uses it to enrich its value. How can you coat or frame the changes in your life to harvest beauty, brilliance, and wisdom?” – Susan C. Young. 
    
46. “A pure soul is like a fine pearl. As long as it is hidden in the shell, at the bottom of the sea, no one thinks of admiring it. But if you bring it into the sunshine, this pearl will shine and attract all eyes. Thus, the pure soul, which is hidden from the eyes of the world, will one day shine before the Angels in the sunshine of eternity.” – John Vianney. 
    
47. “The pearl is the queen of gems and the gem of queens.” – Grace Kelly.
    
48. “Coco Chanel used to talk about wearing more than one string of pearls. Why wear one if you can wear two or something to that effect.” – C. JoyBell C. 
    
49. “With short hair, you begin to carve pearl necklaces, long earrings, and a variety of sunglasses. Short hair removes obvious feminity and replaces it with style.” – Joan Juliet Buck.
    
50. “The heart of man is very much like the sea; it has its storms, it has its tides and, in its depths, it has pearls too.” – Vincent Van Gogh.
    
51. “As the pearl repines in the obscurity of its shell, so ripens in the tomb all the fame that is truly precious.” – Walter Savage Landor. 
    
52. “What strikes the oyster shell, doesn’t damage the pearl.” – Rumi.
    
53. “No good poem, however confessional it may be, is just a self-expression. Who on earth would claim that the pearl expresses the oyster?” – C. S. Lewis. 
    
54. “It is the hour of pearl – the internal between day and night when time stops and examines itself.” – John Steinbeck. 
    
55. “Value them; they are pearls of great price.” – P.C. Cast.
    
56. “People imagine I am always in Bentley with pearls and diamonds and black glasses and Karl Lagerfeld next to me.” – Ines De La Fressange. 
    
57. “It is no more easy to make a good picture than it is to find a diamond or a pearl. It means trouble, and you risk your life for it.” – Vincent Van Gough. 
    
58. “I favor pearls on screen and in my private life.” – Grace Kelly.
     
59. “When I’m cold I just put another rope of pearls on.” – Dorothy Parker
    
60. “Like a layer on a pearl, you can’t specifically identify the irritant, the moment of the irritant, but at the end of the day, you know you have a pearl.” – Ken Burns.
    
61. “Those who look for seashells will find seashells; those who open them will find pearls.” – Al-Ghazali.
    
62. “Next to sound judgment, diamonds and pearls are the rarest things in the world.” – Jean De La Bruyere. 
    
63. “A great life is nothing more than a series of days well lived strung together like a string of pearls.” – Robin S. Sharma
    
64. “My role in life is that of the grain of sand to the oyster-it irritates the oyster, and out comes a pearl.”- H. Ross Perot
    
65. “Whatever pearl you seek, look for the pearl within the pearl!” – Rumi.
    
66. “Perhaps the sea’s definition of a shell is the pearl.” – Khalil Gibran.
    
67. “A pearl is worthless as long as it’s in its shell.” – Native American Proverb.
    
68. “The pearls weren’t really white; they were a warm oyster beige, with little knots in between, so if they broke, you only lost one. I wished my life could be like that, knotted up so that even if something broke, the whole thing wouldn’t come apart.” – Janet Fitch. 
    
69. “I dream of a world…where wretchedness will hang its head and joy, like a pearl, attends the needs of all mankind. Of such, I dream, my world!” – Langston Hughes.
    
70. “Moderation is the silken string running through the pearl chain of all virtues.” – Joseph Hall.
    
71. “Dive into the sea of thought, and find their pearls beyond price.” – Moses Ibn Ezra. 
72. “Contentment is a pearl of great price.” – John Balguy. 
    
73. “I like the laughter that opens the lips and the hart, shows at the same time the pearls and the soul.” – Victor Hugo. 
    
74. “To the seeker after pearls, silence is a speaking argument, for no berth comes forth from the diver of the sea.” – Saib Tabrizi. 
    
75. “A word of kindness is seldom spoken in vail, while witty saying is as easily lost as the pearls slipping from a broken string.” – George D. Prentice. 
    
76. “At the moment our rational mind stops, hits against a wall…something else happens. And a biggers mind, like a pearl, rolls in a silver bowl.” – Natalie Goldberg. 
    
77. “If diving once does not bring you pearls, you need not therefore conclude that the sea is without them.” – Ramakrishna
    
78. “There is no irritant as painful as an ace up your sleeve that you can never use; it’s the kind of thing that causes oysters to produce pearls.” – Sheila Ballantyne. 
    
79. “Like falling stars from the universe, we are hurled down through the long loneliness of the world. Until we behold the pain, become the pearl.” – Emmylou Harris.
    
80. “And we laughed at the world. They can have their diamonds, and we’ll have our pearls.” – Jill Sobule. 
    
81. “Universally, the better gold, the worse man. The political economist defies us to show any gold mine country that is traversed by good roads, or a shore where pearls are found on which good schools are erected.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson. 
    
82. “Marco Polo had seen the inhabitants of Zipangu place rose-colored pearls in the mouths of the dead. A sea monster has been enamored of the pearl that the diver brought to King Perozes, and has slain the thief and mourned for seven moons over its loss.” – Oscar Wilde
    
83. “Dive into the sea of thought, and find there pearls beyond price.” – Moses ibn Ezra
    
84. “Full fathom five thy father lies; of his bones are coral made; those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade, but doth suffer a sea-change into something rich and strange” – Shakespeare
    
85. “But the pearls were accidents, and the finding of one was luck, a little pat on the back by God or the Gods both” – John Steinbeck
    
86. “The pearl is an indicator of the health of the planet. Upon its lustrous surface, every typhoon, every change in water temperature, every current caused by a dynamite blast, and every nuance in the cleanliness of the water is recorded. It falls on the highly skilled peal farmer to act as a steward of creation.” – Joyce Hifler
    
87. “I had just received La Peregrina from New York on a delicate little chain and I was wearing it like a talisman.” – Elizabeth Taylor
    
88. “As a pearl is formed and its layers grow a rich iridescence begins to glow. The oyster has taken what was at first an irritation and intrusion and uses it to enrich its value” – Susan Young
    
89. “I feel undressed if I don’t have my pearls on. My pearls are my security blanket.” – Lady Sarah Churchill
    
90. “The heart of man is very much like the sea. It has the storms, it has the tides and in its depth, it has its pearls.” – Vincent Van Gogh
    
91. “I am thoroughly sick of pearls. They make one look so plain, so good and so intellectual.” – Oscar Wilde
    
92. “Those who look for seashells will find sea shells; those who open them will find pearls.” – Unknown origin
    
93. “Love is felt like a falling raindrop that scatters on a trembling leaf then rolls off its tip in a cascade of pearls.” – Krishna Mira Prabhu 
    
94. “All art is autobiography; the pearl is the oyster’s autobiography.” – Frederico Fellini
    
95. “Well, for us, in history where goodness is a rare pearl, he who was good almost takes precedence over he who was great.” Victor Hugo
    
96. “Real friendship, like real poetry, is extremely rare and precious as a pearl.” – Tahar Ben Jelloun
    
97. “My dream is to adorn the neck of all women around the world with pearls.” – Kokichi Mikimoto
98. “A woman needs ropes and ropes of pearls.” – Coco Chanel
    
99. “The world is your oyster. It is up to you to find the pearls.” – Chris Gardner
    
100. “Pearls are always appropriate.” – Jackie Kennedy

Conclusion

So, this was all about the popular pearl quotes. All these positive pearl quotes give a sneak peek into the mystical world of this gem. The charm of pearls does not end with these beautiful pearl quotes. There is still a lot more unsaid about this charming gem. So, keep exploring more about pearls to see how magnificent their aura is.