So may a glory from defect arise.

There are intellects that shine and there are those that sparkle. The former illuminate matters, the latter obscure them.

Funny how imperfections on the outside mean something splendid beneath.

There may be one fault in a man that conceals a thousand qualities, or one excellence that conceals a thousand faults. The little indicates much.

Let a defect, which is possibly but small, appear undisguised.
A fault concealed is presumed to be great.

Why obliterate the exceptional merely in order to make the outstanding look finer than it was?

The weak shows his strength and hides his weaknesses; the magnificent exhibits his weaknesses like ornaments.

Beautiful women, whose beauty meant more than it said... was their brilliancy always fed by something coarse and concealed? Was that their secret?

…once can easily see in an object at once a perfection and an absence of origin, a closure and a brilliance, a transformation of life into matter (matter is much more magical than life), and in a word a silence which belongs to the realm of fairy-tales.

It seems to me the charm of etching is the glimmering through of the white paper even in the shadows so that almost everything sparkles or suggest sparkles.

Some beautiful things are more dazzling when they are still imperfect than when they have been too perfectly crafted.

Girls should learn that so much finery is only put on to hide defects, and that the triumph of beauty is to shine by itself.

Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people's weaknesses.

She was a triumph over ugliness, so often more beguiling than real beauty, if only because it contains paradox. In this case, as opposed to the scrupulous method of good taste and scientific grooming, the trick had been worked by exaggerating defects; she'd made them ornamental by admitting them boldly.