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“Be grateful for everything. The good, the bad, the ugly. Our entire life is a precious gift. It’s all part of our path.”
― Dawn Gluskin

“OPTIMISM, n. The doctrine, or belief, that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

“Today is a new day. I am still alive and I am going to count everything as joy. I mean everything, the good, the bad and the ugly.”
― Charlena E. Jackson, Dying on The Inside and Suffocating on The Outside

“I titled the essay “What Makes People Vote Republican?” I began by summarizing the standard explanations that psychologists had offered for decades: Conservatives are conservative because they were raised by overly strict parents, or because they are inordinately afraid of change, novelty, and complexity, or because they suffer from existential fears and therefore cling to a simple worldview with no shades of gray.17 These approaches all had one feature in common: they used psychology to explain away conservatism. They made it unnecessary for liberals to take conservative ideas seriously because these ideas are caused by bad childhoods or ugly personality traits.”
― Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion

“The most common hit I get is the cringeworthy “You’re autistic? Well, you must be very high-functioning.” Sigh. I understand what they’re trying to say. Really, I do. They mean to be kind. The implication is “I don’t see many—if any—of the clearly debilitating characteristics I associate with autism when I talk to you. So, good on you. You’re not bad off!” Only that’s not a compliment at all. It’s a comparison based on the premise that “autistic” is an insult. A stigma. Or at least a bad thing. Because the only reason someone thinks of me as “high-functioning” is by holding me up to someone who is no more or less autistic—just more obviously challenged—and deciding that they are “lower-functioning.” Really, it’s no different than saying, “Oh! Well, good for you. You’re not too ugly. That gal over there? She’s royally ugly.” Lack of understanding tied up with a bow of condescension.”
― Jennifer O'Toole, Autism in Heels: The Untold Story of a Female Life on the Spectrum

“But that’s war for you. An ugly business that only leaves bad men better off. Why folk insisted on singing about great warriors all the time, Rikke couldn’t have said. Why not sing about really good fishermen, or bakers, or roofers, or some other folk who actually left the world a better place, rather than heaping up corpses and setting fire to things? Was that behaviour to encourage?”
― Joe Abercrombie, A Little Hatred

“People always tend to idealize the departed. But I want the boys to understand their father was a wonderful, mortal man with flaws, not an unapproachable saint. Otherwise, they'll never really know him."
"What flaws?" West asked gently.
Her lips pursed as she considered the question thoughtfully. "He was often elusive. In the world, but not of it. Part of that was because of his illness, but he also didn't like unpleasantness. He avoided anything that was ugly or upsetting." She turned to face him. "Henry was so determined to think of me as perfect that it devastated him when I was petty or cross or careless. I wouldn't want-" Phoebe paused.
"What?" West prompted after a long moment.
"I wouldn't want to live with such expectations again. I'd rather not be worshipped, but accepted for all that I am, good and bad.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Devil's Daughter

“But to Fitz she’d always be invisible. An impossible task of face and body for which he had yet to conquer. And should he somehow manage to crack her open like rotten fruit on the vine, he’d only find decay and ugliness, from which she had to assume he’d run. Damaged goods were damaged goods.”
― L. Donsky-Levine, The Bad Girl

“Art should be beautiful, not ugly. It should be uplifting and redemptive. Art reassures us that life is good and that, however bad things may look at the moment, everything works out for the best in the end.”
― Michael Swanwick, Chasing the Phoenix

“I didn’t want you to ever have to deal with shit like this. It’s too ugly and—”
“I don’t care. Good or bad, it’s a part of you. And you’re a part of me.”
― Linda Kage, Worth It

“Once the real you emerges and appears unfettered, naked, and completely in touch with the good, the bad, and the ugly, then you really meet yourself. Then all those things take on a different perspective as well.”
― Ron Perlman, Easy Street: The Hard Way

“Personally? I think there’s more going on around us than we realize. I think God uses even the bad and ugly things in this world to lead us to a good place.”
― Max Lucado, Miracle at the Higher Grounds Cafe

“People can still see you even if you enter the next door. Even if you are dead and gone, they can still see you. What is necessary is whether they see you for the good, bad or ugly reason.”
― Israelmore Ayivor, Shaping the dream

“We consistently label people, actions, words, situations, and events as “bad”, “not good enough”, or “wrong”. We say, “She is annoying”, “She is boring”, and “She is ugly” as if they were facts. Then we experience an emotional reaction to these labels, and we treat ourselves and others according to them.”
― Noah Elkrief, A Guide to the Present Moment

“In truth, it is evil beauty that is most devastating. For beauty isn’t always good and ugliness isn’t always bad. It is how we perceive ourselves that matters. True courage isn’t about being brave. True beauty isn’t about being beautiful. True courage is about being real. True beauty is about being happy.”
― R.K. Ryals, The Story of Awkward

“You aren’t old. That’s the world talking to you, telling you that you have no value because of your age. Darling girl, stop trying to be young and stupid. Own yourself, my girl. Own your wisdom and the things you’ve learned that brought you here, back to me. Back to where you’ve always belonged. Those twenty-somethings . . . they don’t know the power of a woman who owns every part of herself. The good, the bad, the ugly.”
― Shannon Mayer, Midlife Bounty Hunter

“Cling to him? Nimmy, Jesus came to be sacrificed for our sins. We offer him,
immolated, on the altar. And still, you want to cling to him?"..."To sacrifice Jesus is to give him up, of course."
The monk started. "But I gave up everything for Jesus!"
"Oh, did you! Except Jesus, perhaps, good simpleton?"
"If I give up Jesus, I will have nothing at all!"
'Well, that might be perfect poverty, but for one thing: that nothing—you should
get rid of that too, Nimmy."..."Nimmy, the only hard thing about following Christ is that you must throw away
all values, even the value you place on following Christ. And to throw them away
doesn't mean sell them, or sell them out. To be truly poor in spirit, discard your loves
and your hates, your good and bad taste, your preferences. Your wish to be, or not be, a
monk of Christ. Get rid of it. You can't even see the path, if you care where it goes. Free
from values, you can see it plain as day. But if you have even one little wish, a wish to
be sinless, or a wish to change your dirty clothes, the path vanishes. Did you ever think
that maybe the cangue and chains you wear are your own precious values, Nimmy?
Your vocation or lack of it? Good and evil? Ugliness and beauty? Pain and pleasure?
These are values, and these are heavy weights. They make you stop and consider, and
that's when you lose the way of the Lord."..."The Devil!" the monk said softly.
If Specklebird heard it as an accusation, he ignored it. "Him? Throw him away,
dump him in the slit trench with the excrement, throw quicklime on him."
"Jesus!"
"Him too, oh yes, into the trench with that fucker! If he makes you rich.”
― Walter M. Miller

“One thing is needful.—To "give style" to one’s character— a great and rare art! It is practiced by those who survey all the strengths and weaknesses of their nature and then fit them into an artistic plan until every one of them appears as art and reason and even weaknesses delight the eye. Here a large mass of second nature has been added; there a piece of original nature has been removed —both times through long practice and daily work at it. Here the ugly that could not be removed is concealed; there it has been reinterpreted and made sublime. Much that is vague and resisted shaping has been saved and exploited for distant views; it is meant to beckon toward the far and immeasurable. In the end, when the work is finished, it becomes evident how the constraint of a single taste governed and formed everything large and small. Whether this taste was good or bad is less important than one might suppose, if only it was a single taste!

It will be the strong and domineering natures that enjoy their finest gaiety in such constraint and perfection under a law of their own; the passion of their tremendous will relaxes in the face of all stylized nature, of all conquered and serving nature. Even when they have to build palaces and design gardens they demur at giving nature freedom.

Conversely, it is the weak characters without power over themselves that hate the constraint of style. They feel that if this bitter and evil constraint were imposed upon them they would be demeaned; they become slaves as soon as they serve; they hate to serve. Such spirits—and they may be of the first rank—are always out to shape and interpret their environment as free nature: wild, arbitrary, fantastic, disorderly, and surprising. And they are well advised because it is only in this way that they can give pleasure to themselves. For one thing is needful: that a human being should attain satisfaction with himself, whether it be by means of this or that poetry or art; only then is a human being at all tolerable to behold. Whoever is dissatisfied with himself is continually ready for revenge, and we others will be his victims, if only by having to endure his ugly sight. For the sight of what is ugly makes one bad and gloomy.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ

“Dot didn’t answer. The Sheriff bared his teeth at her. “You ugly, disgusting pig.” He raised his hand to strike her— Hester’s demon slammed into him, bashing the Sheriff in the groin with its horns. Before it could gore him again, a scim ripped through the demon’s claw, pinning the demon to the ceiling. The Sheriff crumpled to the floor, wailing high-pitched noises. Hester gasped, buckling against the wall, as if the wind had been crushed out of her, her skin turning white. Overhead, her red-skinned demon bleated in pain. “H-H-Hester, you okay?” Agatha sputtered. But Hester wasn’t listening, her eyes bloodshot and still fixed on the Sheriff. “Too bad for you, your daughter has friends,” she said. “Lots of friends,” Anadil seethed. “And if you ever touch Dot, you ever speak to her like that again, those friends will tear out your throat,” said Hester. “We will kill her own father to protect her and we won’t feel an ounce of guilt. You don’t know us. You don’t know what we’re capable of.” “And you don’t know the truth about your daughter either,” said Anadil, red glare slashing through the Sheriff. “She isn’t an embarrassment or ugly or any of the other lies you dump on her. She’s a miracle. You know why? Because she came from stock like you and is still the best friend anyone could ask for.” Dot’s face flooded with tears, her whole body quivering. The Sheriff sobbed in pain behind the couch.”
― Soman Chainani, Quests for Glory