good, bad, or indifferent

good, bad, or indifferent

However something or someone may be, take it/him/her as they come. The phrase appears in Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy (1760–67) and is spelled out in Joel Barlow’s poem, “Hasty-Pudding” (1792): “E’en Hasty Pudding, purest of all food, May still be bad, indifferent, or good.”