Appearances Quotes

“All that glisters is not gold;
Often have you heard that told:
Many a man his life hath sold
But my outside to behold:
Gilded tombs do worms enfold.”
― William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

“Character is like a tree and reputation its shadow. The shadow is what we think it is and the tree is the real thing.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“Too many people spend money they haven't earned, to buy things they don't want, to impress people that they don't like.”
― Will Rogers

“Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.”
― Margaret Thatcher

“I don't know. Just because someone's pretty doesn't mean she's decent. Or vice versa. I'm not into appearances. I like flaws, I think they make things interesting.”
― Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever

“The thing about chameleoning your way through life is that it gets to where nothing is real.”
― John Green, An Abundance of Katherines

“What do I care how 'e looks? I am good-looking enough for both of us, I theenk! All these scars show is zat my husband is brave!”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

“Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns.

These things and deeds are diametrically opposed: they are as distinct as is vice from virtue. Men too often confound them: they should not be confounded: appearance should not be mistaken for truth; narrow human doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be substituted for the world-redeeming creed of Christ. There is – I repeat it – a difference; and it is a good, and not a bad action to mark broadly and clearly the line of separation between them.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“When a girl feels that she’s perfectly groomed and dressed she can forget that part of her. That’s charm”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Short Stories

“Is that why you've been pushing me away? Because of how you look? [...] I waited for you my whole life. Yearned for you my whole life. After Tersa told me you were coming, I spent seven hundred years searching for you[....] I never gave a damn what you looked like--tall, short, fat, thin, plain, beautiful, ugly. Why would I care about what you looked like? The flesh was the shell that housed the glory[....] Even if I couldn't be your physical lover, there are other ways to be a lover and I know them all. So don't stand there and tell me how you feel depends on how you look!”
― Anne Bishop, Dreams Made Flesh

“Our lives are mere flashes of light in an infinitely empty universe. In 12 years of education the most important lesson I have learned is that what we see as “normal” living is truly a travesty of our potential. In a society so governed by superficiality, appearances, and petty economics, dreams are more real than anything anything in the “real world”. Refuse normalcy. Beauty is everywhere, love is endless, and joy bleeds from our everyday existence. Embrace it. I love all of you, all my friends, family, and community. I am ceaselessly grateful from the bottom of my heart for everyone. The only thing I can ask of you is to stay free of materialism. Remember that every day contains a universe of potential; exhaust it. Live and love so immensely that when death comes there is nothing left for him to take. Wealth is love, music, sports, learning, family and freedom. Above all, stay gold.”
― Dominic Owen Mallary

“Women want to be loved like roses. They spend hours perfecting their eyebrows and toes and inventing irresistible curls that fall by accident down the back of their necks from otherwise austere hair-dos. They want their lover to remember the way they held a glass. They want to haunt.”
― Eve Babitz, Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, and L.A.

“People who need to bully you are the easiest to push around.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance: An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series

“But above all, in order to be, never try to seem.”
― Albert Camus, Notebooks, 1935-1951

“Being liked for the way you looked is worse than not being liked at all.”
― Amanda Hocking, My Blood Approves

“Is," "is," "is"—the idiocy of the word haunts me. If it were abolished, human thought might begin to make sense. I don't know what anything "is"; I only know how it seems to me at this moment.”
― Robert Anton Wilson, Nature's God

“I'm told I have the body of a god."

"A Greek god, or one of those gods with the horse heads or elephant's legs coming out of their chests?" Alan asked. "Next time someone tells you that, ask them to specify.”
― Sarah Rees Brennan, The Demon's Covenant

“And I. I too.
Quite collected at cocktail parties,
meanwhile in my head
I'm undergoing open-heart surgery.”
― Anne Sexton, Transformations

“People do not wish to appear foolish; to avoid the appearance of foolishness, they are willing to remain actually fools. ”
― Alice Walker

“Since we live in a world of appearances, people are judged by what they seem to be. If the mind can't read the predictable features, it reacts with alarm or aversion. Faces which don’t fit in the picture are socially banned. An ugly countenance, a hideous outlook can be considered as a crime and criminals must be inexorably discarded from society. ( "Ugly mug offense" )”
― Erik Pevernagie

“When we stay locked up in the spectrum of unsolved life stories and keep hiding in an arcane prism, life remains a mystery behind perpetual tensions and a journey in a world beyond appearances. (“Une femme peut en cacher une autre")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Being afraid you'll look like a coward is the worst reason for doing anything.”
― John Irving, The Cider House Rules

“I've told you before. You shouldn't judge people based on appearances and your preconceptions.”
― Itachi Uchiha

“While walking down the memory lane, we may discover in the remains of our early days, surprising little details that have been eclipsed under the mantle of forgetfulness or inattention. Those loose shreds in our remembrance can highlight the importance of the fundamentals that steer our daily lives. But they may also entice us to crack the particular value that we impart to trivial matters or quirky actions. Then, we are capable of discerning the uprightness and the truth behind the appearances. ("Dirty bike")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Nobody wants to look like a fool. Nine times out of ten, that
reason alone keeps people from allowing themselves to believe.”
― Darynda Jones, First Grave on the Right

“Another vampire pushed her way through the crowd to stand at his
side—a pretty blue-haired Asian girl in a silver foil skirt. Clary wondered if there were any ugly vampires, or maybe any fat ones. Maybe they didn't make vampires out of ugly people. Or maybe ugly people just didn't want to live forever.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Bones

“So may the outward shows be least themselves:
The world is still deceived with ornament.
In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt,
But, being seasoned with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil? In religion,
What damned error, but some sober brow
Will bless it and approve it with a text,
Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?
There is no vice so simple but assumes
Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.”
― William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

“The leprosy of unreality disfigured every human creature in attendance.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“In all aspects of life, we take on a part and an appearance to seem to be what we wish to be--and thus the world is merely composed of actors.”
― François de La Rochefoucauld