"I am not beautiful."
"No. But you have power. Your anger has power, and you have power yourself, beyond that."
A.S. Byatt, "Christ in the House of Martha and Mary," Elementals
The truth isn't always beauty, but the hunger for it is.
Nadine Gordimer, "A Bolter and the Invincible Summer", London Magazine, May 1963
But what the intellect regards as shameful often appears splendidly beautiful to the heart.
Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (translation unknown)
Should you shield the canyons from the windstorms you would never see the true beauty of their carvings.
attr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
And above all watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you, because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.
Roald Dahl, The Minpins