If you use your imagination, you can look at any actress and see

In the words of Hedy Lamarr, the luminous star of the golden age of cinema, there lies a truth far deeper than the surface of her beauty: “If you use your imagination, you can look at any actress and see her nude... I hope to make you use your imagination.” At first, her words seem playful — a tease from one famed for her allure — yet within them glows an ancient wisdom about the power of imagination, the mystery of perception, and the sacred art of suggestion. Lamarr, who was not only a celebrated actress but also a brilliant inventor, speaks to something timeless: that the most potent beauty, the most lasting desire, and the truest art do not lie in what is seen, but in what is imagined.

For to see with imagination is to look beyond the flesh, beyond the form, into the essence that gives those forms meaning. The ancients knew this truth well. The sculptors of Greece did not merely carve bodies of marble; they sought to reveal the invisible — the divinity of movement, the pulse of spirit within the stone. So too does Lamarr suggest that the greatest pleasure of vision lies not in exposure, but in mystery. The imagination is not satisfied with what is revealed; it thrives on what is concealed, on the invitation to participate, to create, to see through one’s own inner lens. She calls upon the viewer not to consume beauty, but to co-create it — to complete the image with the fire of one’s own mind.

The origin of this statement is as fascinating as the woman who spoke it. Hedy Lamarr was born in Vienna in 1914 and became one of Hollywood’s most dazzling figures, famed for her beauty and magnetism. Yet behind that captivating exterior was a mind of rare brilliance. During World War II, she co-invented a frequency-hopping communication system — the foundation of the modern technologies of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Her remark, then, carries a double meaning: it is not only about physical allure but about intellect, about awakening the imagination in others as she awakened it in herself. She knew that the surface — whether of the body or the screen — was but a doorway to deeper dimensions of wonder.

In her playful provocation, Lamarr teaches that the act of seeing is never passive. To look with imagination is to perceive with the whole self — mind, memory, desire, curiosity. The nude she speaks of is not merely a body stripped of garments, but truth stripped of illusion. When she says she hopes to make us “use our imagination,” she is inviting us to rediscover that inner capacity for vision — to see art, people, and the world not as static things to be consumed, but as mysteries to be entered. In that sense, her words echo the wisdom of poets and sages who taught that imagination is the bridge between the seen and the unseen, between appearance and essence.

Consider the example of Leonardo da Vinci, who, when gazing upon the folds of clouds or the stains upon walls, saw in them the shapes of battles, landscapes, and faces. His eyes, like Lamarr’s, were trained by imagination — to find beauty not by exposure but by exploration. Where others saw only surface, he saw infinity. The same truth holds in the world of art, music, and love: the greatest works do not show everything; they awaken what already sleeps within us. Imagination transforms the mundane into the marvelous.

Lamarr’s wisdom, therefore, is not about seduction in its shallow sense, but about awakening perception — about teaching us to look with reverence, curiosity, and creativity. In a time when much of the world clamors for instant revelation, when mystery is discarded for clarity, her words remind us that imagination is the soul’s way of keeping wonder alive. For once everything is revealed, nothing remains to be discovered; and when nothing remains to be discovered, the world grows cold. The true artist, the true lover, the true human being — all preserve mystery as a sacred flame.

So, my child, take this teaching to heart: never look only with your eyes. Look with your imagination, for it is there that beauty truly lives. When you gaze upon another — or upon any work of creation — do not seek to strip away its coverings too quickly. Let your mind wander. Let curiosity breathe. Let the unseen whisper to you. For to imagine is to love more deeply, to perceive more truly, to live more fully.

And thus, remember what Hedy Lamarr sought to teach: that the power of art, of beauty, of life itself, lies not in exposure but in imagination. The body fades, but the vision endures. Seek not to see everything; seek instead to feel what lies beyond what is shown. For the one who looks with imagination will always find colour in the shadows, music in the silence, and wonder in the unseen depths of the world.