external appearances Quotes

Success is an ugly thing. Men are deceived by its false resemblances to merit.... They confound the brilliance of the firmament with the star-shaped footprints of a duck in the mud.

I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.

The common people are but ill judges of a man's merits; they are slaves to fame, and their eyes are dazzled with the pomp of titles and large retinue. No wonder, then, that they bestow their honors on those who least deserve them.

You can put a new shirt on your back, slide a fresh chain around your neck, and accumulate all the money and power in the world, but at the end of the day those are just layers. Money and power don't change you, they just further expose your true self.

As if with the nut and flower, the nut has become less than the flower... both those teaching and those learning are concerned with colouring and showing off their technique, trying to hasten the bloom of the flower.

You know your inside, and you know the others' outside: that creates jealousy. They know your outside, and they know their inside: that creates jealousy. Nobody else knows your inside. There you know you are nothing, worthless. And the others on the outside look so smiling. Their smiles may be phony, but how can you know that they are phony? Maybe their hearts are also smiling. You know your smile is phony, because your heart is not smiling at all, it may be crying and weeping.

If you can understand the inner life, then you can wear the uniform, the tattoos, or whatnot and realize that the things that are different about us become superficial.

People might look great on the outside but they all have something that they're dealing with.

Never compare your insides to everyone else's outsides.

What many men desire--that 'many' may be meant By the fool multitude that choose by show, Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach, Which pries not to th' interior, but like the martlet Builds in the weather on the outward wall, Even in the force and road of casualty.

Being sad and being depressed are two different things. Also, people going through depression don't look so, while someone sad will look sad. The most common reaction is, 'How can you be depressed? You have everything going for you. You are the supposed number one heroine and have a plush home, car, movies... What else do you want?'

And I loathe people who find it harder to put up with a gown askew than with a soul askew and who judge a man by his bow, his bearing and his boots.

Never compare your inside with somebody else's outside. -Gabe Singleton remembering his counselor's first advice-

A wise man looks upon men as he does on horses; all their caparisons of title, wealth, and place, he considers but as harness.

A high income job, a big house, nice cars, and lavish vacations don't mean you are rich, in fact it could mean exactly opposite

I see the beard and cloak, but I don't yet see a philosopher. -Video barbam et pallium; philosophum nondum video

No amount of vintage dresses gives you dignity

I wear weird things sometimes. I like to drink coffee. Neither of those things have anything to do with who I am.

People are much more important than superficial environments.

You cannot hide any secret. If the artist succor his flagging spirits by opium or wine, his work will characterize itself as the effect of opium or wine. If you make a picture or a statue, it sets the beholder in that state of mind you had when you made it. If you spend for show, on building, or gardening, or on pictures, or on equipages, it will so appear. We are all physiognomists and penetrators of character, and things themselves are detective.

The greater part of mankind judge of men only by their fashionableness or their fortune.

For neither does wealth bring honour to the owner, if he be a coward; of such a one the wealth belongs to another, and not to himself. Nor does beauty and strength of body, when dwelling in a base and cowardly man, appear comely, but the reverse of comely, making the possessor more conspicuous, and manifesting forth his cowardice.

The externals are important but I'm not interested in superficiality.

A mask of gold hides all deformities.