Getting talked about is one of the penalties for being pretty, while being above suspicion is about the only compensation for being homely.
Let thy maid servant be faithful, strong, and homely.
We assume that good-looking people are smarter and more effective than they really are, and that homely people are the reverse.
It's very homely, this castle. It doesn't have huge ballrooms. I didn't want a cold, cavernous place.
I have no ambition to surprise my reader. Castles with unknown passages are not compatible with my homely muse.
A homely woman is one of the most comely of apes.
Wherever souls are being tried and ripened, in whatever commonplace and homely way, there God is hewing out the pillars for His temple.
There is a sort of homely truth and naturalness in some books which is very rare to find, and yet looks cheap enough. There may benothing lofty in the sentiment, or fine in the expression, but it is careless country talk. Homeliness is almost as great a merit in a book as in a house, if the reader would abide there. It is next to beauty, and a very high art. Some have this merit only.
There is a charm, even for homely things, in perfect maintenance.
There is not a single homely thing that, looked at from a certain angle, does not become fairy.
Quite the ugliest face I ever saw was that of a woman whom the world called beautiful. Through its silver veil the evil and ungentle passions looked out, hideous and hateful. On the other hand, there are faces which the multitude, at first glance, pronounce homely, unattractive and such as "Nature fashions by the gross," which I always recognize with a warm heart-thrill. Not for the world would I have one feature changed; they please me as they are; they are hallowed by kind memories, and are beautiful through their associations.
I was a homely kid with freckles that came out every spring and stuck on me till Christmas.
I'm too homely for a prima donna and too ugly for a soubrette.
Homely truth is unpalatable.
Show me a genuine case of platonic friendship, and I shall show you two old or homely faces.
If there is one lesson Rome teaches, it is that matter is good; in Rome the holy and the homely rise and converge.
Nothing fires the warrior’s heart more with courage than to find himself and his comrades at the point of annihilation, at the brink of being routed and overrun, and then to dredge not merely from one’s own bowels or guts but from one’s discipline and training the presence of mind not to panic, not to yield to the possession of despair, but instead to complete those homely acts of order which Dienekes had ever declared the supreme accomplishment of the warrior: to perform the commonplace under far-from-commonplace conditions.
I look at my homely sketch. It doesn't need anything. Even through the river in my eyes I can see that. It isn't perfect and that makes it just right.
It is a high distinction for a homely woman to be loved for her character rather than for beauty.
Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.
