[U]gliness of the right sort is a kind of beauty. It has some of the best qualities of beauty—it attracts observation and fixes the memory. - Jean Ingelow

A thing that is very unexpected and moderately strange, we meet with wide-opened eyes, with a start and perhaps exclamations; but a thing more than strange, utterly unaccounted for, quite unreasonable, and the last thing one could have supposed possible as coming from the person who demanded it, is met in far quieter fashion.

A great many people think of religion as if it was a game that they had to play with an August Opponent—a game at which both could not win, and yet they actually think they can play it unfairly. They want to cheat. But in that grand and awful game, it cannot be said that either wins unless both do.

[O]ne must have a certain amount of both intelligence and knowledge to be amazed even at the most extraordinary things.