Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain, but I should not have minded finding that out for myself, if it had been so ordained. I have no doubt we will all be beautiful when we are angels, but what good will it do us then?

But I don't want to be a different girl, said Emily decidedly. She had no intention of lowering the Starr flag to Aunt Ruth. I wouldn't want to be anybody but myself even if I am plain. Besides, she added impressively as she turned to go out of the room, though I may not be very good-looking now, when I go to heaven I believe I'll be very beautiful.

it is easier to behave nicely when you have your good clothes on.

Folks say I'm good, he remarked whimsically upon one occasion, but I sometimes wish the Lord had made me only half as good and put the rest of it into looks. But there, I reckon He knew what He was about, as a good Captain should. Some of us have to be homely, or the purty ones—like Mistress Blythe here—wouldn't show up so well.

She was a little lady with snow-white hair beautifully wavy and thick, and carefully arranged in becoming puffs and coils. Beneath it was an almost girlish face, pink-cheeked and sweet-lipped, with big soft brown eyes and dimples . . . actually dimples. She wore a very dainty gown of cream muslin with pale-hued roses on it . . . a gown which would have seemed ridiculously juvenile on most women of her age, but which suited Miss Lavendar so perfectly that you never thought about it all.

Life which had seemed so grey and foolish a few moments before was golden and rose and splendidly rainbowed again. The diamond pendant slipped to the floor, unheeded for the moment. It was beautiful... but there were so many things lovelier... confidence and peace and delightful work... laughter and kindness... that old safe feeling of a sure love.

What's the matter with you, Penny? You're not as good looking as you generally believe you are.

It had been so ugly, and Walter hated ugliness.

Living so that you beautify your name, even if it wasn't beautiful to begin with … making it stand in people's thoughts for something so lovely and pleasant that they never think of it by itself.

A man looks at a "sex goddess" and lusts. A man looks at a feminine woman and worships.

In today's society, looking good and feeling good often trumps doing good and being good. And some people don't know the difference anymore.

As Proust once said, classically beautiful women should be left to men without imagination.