“It’s nothing to be born ugly. Sensibly, the ugly woman comes to terms with her ugliness and exploits it as a grace of nature. To become ugly means the beginning of a calamity, self-willed most of the time.”

—  Colette

Journey for Myself (1971) “Beauties,” Quatre Saisons (c. 1928).

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "It’s nothing to be born ugly. Sensibly, the ugly woman comes to terms with her ugliness and exploits it as a grace of n…" by Colette?
Colette photo
Colette 59
1873-1954 French novelist: wrote Gigi 1873–1954

Related quotes

Joyce Carol Oates photo

“He was ugly, himself. Weird-ugly. But ugliness in a man doesn't matter, much. Ugliness in a woman is her life.”

Joyce Carol Oates (1938) American author

Source: Faithless

George Bernard Shaw photo

“In an ugly and unhappy world the richest man can purchase nothing but ugliness and unhappiness.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

#110
1900s, Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

Jean Cocteau photo

“Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time.”

Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker

As quoted in New York World Telegram & Sun (21 August 1960); also in Threads: My Life Behind the Seams in the High-Stakes World of Fashion (2004) by Joseph Abboud, p. 79

H. G. Wells photo

“There is nothing in machinery, there is nothing in embankments and railways and iron bridges and engineering devices to oblige them to be ugly. Ugliness is the measure of imperfection.”

H. G. Wells book A Modern Utopia

Source: A Modern Utopia (1905), Ch. 3, sect. 8

Karl Kraus photo

“A woman who cannot be ugly is not beautiful.”

Karl Kraus (1874–1936) Czech playwright and publicist

Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths (1976)

“An ugly woman with a gun is a terrible thing.”

Ross Macdonald book The Way Some People Die

The Way Some People Die (1951)

Coco Chanel photo

“Nothing is ugly as long as it is alive.”

Coco Chanel (1883–1971) French fashion designer

As quoted in Coco Chanel : Her Life, Her Secrets (1971) by Marcel Haedrich

“It is ugly ducklings, grown either into swans or into remarkably big, remarkably ugly ducks, who are responsible for most works of art; and yet how few of these give a truthful account of what it was like to be an ugly duckling!—it is almost as if the grown, successful swan had repressed most of the memories of the duckling’s miserable, embarrassing, magical beginnings.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

The memories are deeply humiliating in two ways: they remind the adult that he was once more ignorant and gullible and emotional than he is; and they remind him that he once was, potentially, far more than he is.
“An Unread Book”, p. 19
The Third Book of Criticism (1969)

“It is ugly ducklings, grown either into swans or into remarkably big, remarkably ugly ducks, who are responsible for most works of art; and yet how few of these give a truthful account of what it was like to be an ugly duckling!”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

it is almost as if the grown, successful swan had repressed most of the memories of the duckling’s miserable, embarrassing, magical beginnings. (The memories are deeply humiliating in two ways: they remind the adult that he was once more ignorant and gullible and emotional than he is; and they remind him that he once was, potentially, far more than he is.)

“An Unread Book”, p. 19
The Third Book of Criticism (1969)

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield photo

“Women who are either indisputably beautiful, or indisputably ugly, are best flattered upon the score of their understandings; but those who are in a state of mediocrity are best flattered upon their beauty, or at least their graces; for every woman who is not absolutely ugly thinks herself handsome.”

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) British statesman and man of letters

5 September 1748
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)

Related topics