Walter Scott Quotes

Thus 'tis with all; their chief and constant care Is to seem everything but what they are.

There is none who does not lie hourly in the respect he pays to false appearance.

The Tao of Jen was very much the Tao of hiding everything that didn't look good. The Tao of Jen is wearing a cocktail dress with underwear with holes in it. The Tao of Jen is all style and no substance.

Through tattered clothes great vices do appear; Robes and furred gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold and the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks. Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw does pierce it.

I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God has given you one face, and you make yourselves another: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and nick-name God's creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath made me mad.

He had a certain air of being a handsome man-which he was not; and a certain air of being a well-bred man-which he was not. It was mere swagger and challenge; but in this particular, as in many others, blustering assertion goes for proof, half over the world.

When was it that men agreed to respect the appearance and not the reality?

I am not merry, but I do beguile the thing I am by seeming otherwise.

Pretences go a great way with men that take fair words and magisterial looks for current payment.

Pretend to be good always and even God will be fooled.

When he admitted this to me, I found myself almost annoyed. It was as if he'd hidden this part of himself in order to deceive me, pretending-- as do many people I've discovered--to be what he is not. No one I've ever known is what he appears to be on the surface.

Look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under it.

O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!

From the age of 8, I learned that nothing in the entertainment industry is real. It's all fake. Your face, your clothes, what you say - it's all a fake.

A mask of gold hides all deformities.

This age thinks better of a gilded fool Than of a threadbare saint in wisdom's school.

You never see what you want to see, forever playing to the gallery.

The world is governed more by appearance than realities so that it is fully as necessary to seem to know something as to know it.

How many people live on the reputation of the reputation they might have made!.

You can be dressed the best and have a wicked heart.

People want to see someone who looks like they might have this enviable life, but in turn, they are a mess and their life is a mess.

Affectation hath always had a greater share both in the action and discourse of men than truth and judgment have.

Dissimulation creeps gradually into the minds of men.

So may the outward shows be least themselves; The world is still deceived with ornament.

Men take more pains to mask than mend.