A Quote by Ambrose Bierce
Optimism - the doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.
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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. It is held with greatest tenacity by those most accustomed to the mischance of falling into adversity, and is most acceptably expounded with disproof - an intellectual disorder, yielding to no treatment but death. It is hereditary, but fortunately not contagious.
The Christians believe that Jesus Christ died to save man. With you it is belief in a doctrine, and this belief constitutes your salvation. With us doctrine has nothing whatever to do with salvation. Each one may believe in whatever doctrine he likes; or in no doctrine.
But you're beautiful, and the beautiful should be given whatever they want." "Hey, what about the ugly ones?" "The ugly ones." She poked her tongue out. "It's their fault if their ugly. They're to be blamed, not pitied.
A comprehensive doctrine, either religious or secular, aspires to cover all of life. I mean, if it's a religious doctrine, it talks about our relation to God and the universe; it has an ordering of all the virtues, not only political virtues but moral virtues as well, including the virtues of private life, and the rest. Now we may feel philosophically that it doesn't really cover everything, but it aims to cover everything, and a secular doctrine does also.
the beautiful are found in the edge of a room crumpled into spiders and needles and silence and we can never understand why they left,they were so beautiful. they dont make it, the beautiful die young and leave the ugly to their ugly lives.
There are really two kinds of optimism. There's the complacent, Pollyanna optimism that says "don't worry - everything will be just fine" and that allows one to just lay back and do nothing about the problems around you. Then there's what we call dynamic optimism. That's an optimism based on action.
There are really two kinds of optimism. There's the complacent, Pollyanna optimism that says, 'Don't worry - everything will be just fine,' and that allows one to just lay back and do nothing about the problems around you. Then there's what we call dynamic optimism. That's an optimism based on action.
Beautiful is he who recognizes what is truly beautiful even if the surface is ugly. Truthful is he who says what is true even if the truth is ugly. Ugly is he who measures beauty by its exterior without first weighing the interior. And ugly is the man who judges harshly what he sees looking out without first judging what he sees in the mirror.
I remember growing up and hearing the word "ugly" a lot. "I'm ugly." "She ugly." "He ugly." I hated it then, and I hate it now. I go past physical beauty; I tell people they have a beautiful spirit and that is something different.
Reckoned physiologically, everything ugly weakens and afflicts man. It recalls decay, danger, impotence; he actually suffers a loss of energy in its presence. The effect of the ugly can be measured with a dynamometer. Whenever man feels in any way depressed, he senses the proximity of something ugly. His feeling of power, his will to power, his courage, his pride - they decline with the ugly, they increase with the beautiful.
Christian optimism is not a sugary optimism, nor is it a mere human confidence that everything will turn out all right. It is an optimism that sinks its roots into an awareness of our freedom, and the sure knowledge of the power of grace. It is an optimism that leads us to make demands on ourselves, to struggle to respond at every moment to God's call.
I think I am in my last days, but it doesn't really matter because I have had such a beautiful life. I have lived through many wars and have lost everything many times - including my husband, my mother and my beloved son. Yet, life is beautiful, and I have so much to learn and enjoy. I have no space nor time for pessimism and hate. Life is beautiful, love is beautiful, nature and music are beautiful. Everything we experience is a gift, a present we should cherish and pass on to those we love.
The wrinkled man in the wheelchair with the legs wrapped, the girl with her face punctured deep with the teeth marks of a dog, the mess of the world, and I see - this, all this, is what the French call d'un beau affreux, what the Germans call hubsch-hasslich - the ugly-beautiful. That which is perceived as ugly transfigures into beautiful. What the postimpressionist painter Paul Gauguin expressed as 'Le laid peut etre beau' - The ugly can be beautiful. The dark can give birth to life; suffering can deliver grace.
I've spent so much time feeling ugly and being treated as ugly as a result. But I changed my attitude and said, “I’m beautiful because I love everybody as much as I can. I’m beautiful because I have wonderful friends. And I’m beautiful because I say I am. I’ve earned it, and I’m gonna be it.
Fashion is what seems beautiful now but looks ugly later; art can be ugly at first but it becomes beautiful later.
You're made to feel ugly, and I made ugly beautiful. Just by sheer persistence. Nobody has the right to say that I am ugly, and I will not be a professional victim, you know. Sorry!
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