Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.
The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad.
Nothing is beautiful, except man: all aesthetics rest on this naivete, it is their first truth. Let us straightway add the second: nothing is ugly, except degenerating man; — the domain of aesthetic judgment is thereby limited.
It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But on the other hand no one is more ready than I am to acknowledge that it is better to be good than to be ugly.
Beauty is nothing, beauty won’t stay. You don’t know how lucky you are to be ugly, because if people like you then you know it’s for something else.