Hermann Broch Quotes

Herein lies the main objective of portraiture and also its main difficulty. The photographer probes for the innermost. The lens sees only the surface... .

The surface is all you get of me.

We can see, so we are always blind to things deeper than skin.

Beware, so long as you live, of judging men by their outward appearance.

Love lieth deep; Love dwells not in lip-depths.

Earnestness is highly underestimated. It comes from the core, while hip is trying to impress you on the surface.

We are trying to communicate that which lies in our deepest heart, which has no words, which can only be hinted at through the means of a story.

You know, people seldom go to the trouble of scratching the surface of things to find the inner truth.

We are thickly layered, page lying upon page, behind simple covers. And love - it is not the book itself, but the binding.

Clever people, people who are cunning, do not know what love is because their minds are so sharp, because they are so clever, because they are so superficial - which means to be on the surface, and love is not a thing that exists on the surface.

Hatred is keener than friendship, less keen than love.

Beauty is not, as fond men misdeem, an outward show of things that only seem.

This is personal, she'd said. Real. This moment was too, even if you couldn't see it at first glance. It was fake on the outside, but so true within. You only had to look, really look to tell.

Like" and "like" and "like"--but what is the thing that lies beneath the semblance of the thing?

No matter how many levels of consciousness one reaches, the problem always goes deeper.

Outward appearances mean everything.

Love is who we are, and when we deviate from that love we're deviating from our ultimate, essential, eternal reality.

The heart is the secret inside the secret.

The pictures do not lie, but neither do they tell the whole story. They are merely a record of time passing, the outward evidence.

The world is content with setting right the surface of things.

I have heard what poets write about women. They rhyme and rhapsodize and lie. I have watched sailors on the shore stare mutely at the slow-rolling swell of the sea. I have watched old soldiers with hearts like leather grow teary-eyed at their king's colors stretched against the wind. Listen to me: these men know nothing of love. You will not find it in the words of poets or the longing eyes of sailors. If you want to know of love, look to a trouper's hands as he makes his music. A trouper knows.

Perhaps second-hand cares, like second-hand clothes, come easily off and on.

But he who loveliness within Hath found, all outward loathes, For he who color loves, and skin, Loves but their oldest clothes.

It is easier to perceive error than to find truth, for the former lies on the surface and is easily seen, while the latter lies in the depth, where few are willing to search for it.

On the surface, an intelligible lie; underneath, the unintelligible truth.