The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded for ever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to the light among the thorns.
George Santayana


At a distance the world looks pretty enough. From near it's brainless, banal, and indecent beyond words.

Gerhart Hauptmann