First Appearances Quotes & Sayings

They laughed together then until the woman's features turned somber. "Thank you for not lying about what you thought of my appearance. You might have a face to turn my hair white, but your honesty is handsome. — Grace Draven

But, first, remember, remember, remember the signs. Say them to yourself when you wake in the morning and when you lie down at night, and when you wake in the middle of the night. And whatever strange things may happen to you, let nothing turn your mind from following the signs. And secondly, I give you a warning. Here on the mountain I have spoken to you clearly: I will not often do so down in Narnia. Here on the mountain, the air is clear and your mind is clear; as you drop down into Narnia, the air will thicken. Take great care that it does not confuse your mind. And the signs which you have learned here will not look at all as you expect them to look, when you meet them there. That is why it is so important to know them by heart and pay no attention to appearances. Remember the signs and believe the signs. Nothing else matters. — C.S. Lewis

Time worked unhurriedly, conscientiously. First the man was expelled from life, to reside instead in people's memories. Then he lost his right to residence in people's memories, sinking down into their subconscious minds and jumping out at someone only occasionally, like a jack-in-the-box, frightening them with the unexpectedness of his sudden, momentary appearances. — Vasily Grossman

But first appearances are often deceptive. Not everything monstrous looking is evil, and not everything fair is good ... and in every fairytale, there is a grain of truth. — Andrzej Sapkowski

Now for the first time I learned to know men and I learned to distinguish between empty appearances or brutal manners and the real inner nature of the people who outwardly appeared thus. — Adolf Hitler

Our names are an integral part of the faces we show to the world. If we're judged first on outward appearances, we're assessed next on our names. — Sharon Bolton

In all determinations of morality, this circumstance of public utility is ever principally in view; and wherever disputes arise, either in philosophy or common life, concerning the bounds of duty, the questions cannot, by any means, be decided with greater certainty, than by ascertaining, on any side, the true interests of mankind. If any false opinion, embraced from appearances, has been found to prevail; as soon as farther experience and sounder reasoning have given us juster notions of human affairs, we retract our first sentiment, and adjust anew the boundaries of moral good and evil. — David Hume

Eager watch was
kept for the first appearance of the legendary creature in the village, and it may be said that as far as
appearances went Basil Blake was all that could be asked for. Little by little, however, the real facts
leaked out. Basil Blake was not a film star, not even a film actor. He was a very junior person, rejoicing
in the position of about fifteenth in the list of those responsible for set decorations at Lenville Studios,
headquarters of British New Era Films. The village maidens lost interest and the ruling class of censorious
spinsters took exception to Basil Blake's way of life. — Agatha Christie

The process of tracing regularity in any complicated, and at first sight confused, set of appearances, is necessarily tentative; we begin by making any supposition, even a false one, to see what consequences will follow from it ; and by observing how these differ from the real phenomena, we learn what corrections to make in our assumption. — John Stuart Mill

In those parts of the world where learning and science has prevailed, miracles have ceased; but in such parts of it as are barbarous and ignorant, miracles are still in vogue; which is of itself a strong presumption that in the infancy of letters, learning and science, or in the world's non-age, those who confided in miracles, as a proof of the divine mission of the first promulgators of revelation, were imposed upon by fictitious appearances instead of miracles. — Ethan Allen

I never would have been able to tell!" I was finally able to put my finger on it, and it's something that anyone who is meeting a transgender person for the first time should keep in mind. Saying you "never would have known" is actually very rude. Being surprised that a person looks like the gender they are just reinforces a stereotype that transgender people aren't usually attractive or able to pass, and worse, the stereotype that physical appearances even matter. A person's true essence comes from within! I — Jazz Jennings

Even on TV appearances or big shows, I don't know if I've ever been as nervous as I was my first time doing stand-up. I just remember getting offstage and sitting down, and my right knee was just shaking from the adrenaline. — Hannibal Buress

Every task you are given, no matter how menial, offers opportunities to observe this world at work. No detail about the people within it is too trivial. Everything you see or hear is a sign for you to decode. Over time, you will begin to see and understand more of the reality that eluded you at first. For instance, a person whom you initially thought had great power ended up being someone with more bark than bite. Slowly, you begin to see behind the appearances. As you amass more information about the rules and power dynamics of your new environment, you can begin to analyze why they exist, and how they relate to larger trends in the field. You move from observation to analysis, honing your reasoning skills, but only after months of careful attention. — Robert Greene

Appearances are nothing ... And first of all they should not be feared, they are only dangerous to the weak. — Georges Bernanos

Joanna, like her daughters, was neither old nor young, and yet their physical appearances corresponded to their particular talents. Depending on the situation, Freya could be anywhere from sixteen to twenty-three years of age, the first blush of Love, while Ingrid, keeper of the Hearth, looked and acted anywhere from twenty-seven to thirty-five; and since Wisdom came from experience, even if in her heart she might feel like a schoolgirl, Joanna's features were those of an older woman in her early sixties. — Melissa De La Cruz

I cannot be convinced that great artists are moralists. Art is first appearances, then meaning. — Camille Paglia

Adulterers, in the first stages of the church, were excommunicated forever, and unqualified all their lives for bearing a part in Christian assemblies, notwithstanding they might seek it with tears, and all the appearances of the most unfeigned repentance. — Joseph Addison

There is a long-standing trend of documented trend of UFO appearances and these appearances have led to a fascinating worldwide yet still unsolved enigma. 'Disclosure: The Future is Now' takes a close non-fictional look at the history of UFO sightings and related areas such as alien abductions.and alleged government conspiracies. Disclosure is also a science fiction story of how events in the future may return to affect the Earth at the present time. 'Release From Stasis' is a fictional sequel to the first book's story. — Graham Clingbine

Of all sciences there is none where first appearances are more deceitful than in politics. — David Hume

Every subsequent moral crisis of my life, moreover, has had precisely the pattern of this struggle over the first Communion, I have battled, usually without avail, against a temptation to do something which only I knew was bad, being swept on by a need to preserve outward appearances and to live up to other people's expectations of me. — Mary McCarthy

Wonder ... and not any expectation of advantage from its discoveries, is the first principle which prompts mankind to the study of Philosophy, of that science which pretends to lay open the concealed connections that unite the various appearances of nature. — Adam Smith

He was doing - Ray was designing the clothes for my mom's show from California. And one of the first appearances I ever made on television was on my mother's show and Ray and Bob did the clothes for that. It has been a long time. — Liza Minnelli

To own beauty is the first lie of it. — Chris Campanioni

At ten, she was moreover noisy and wild, hated confinement and cleanliness and loved nothing so well in the world as rolling down the green slope at the back of the house. At fifteen, appearances were mending; she began to curl her hair and long for balls; her complexion improved, her features were softened by plumpness and colour, her eyes gained more animation, and her figure more consequence. Her love of dirt gave away to inclination for finery, and she grew clean as she grew smart. To look almost pretty, is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain the first fifteen years of her life, than a beauty from her cradle can ever imagine. — Jane Austen

By playing at Chess then, we may learn: First: Foresight ... Second: Circumspection ... Third: Caution ... And lastly, we learn by Chess the habit of not being discouraged by present bad appearances in the state of our affairs, the habit of hoping for a favorable chance, and that of persevering in the secrets of resources — Benjamin Franklin

You will fall in love with someone for one night and one night only. They'll come to you when you need them and be gone in the morning when you don't. At first, this will make you feel empty and you'll try to convince yourself that you could've loved this person for longer than a night, but you can't. Some people are just meant to make cameo appearances, some are destined to be a pithy footnote. That's okay though. Not every person we love has to stick around. Sometimes it's better to leave while you're still ahead. Sometimes it's better to leave before you get unloved. — Ryan O'Connell

Don't say bad words; don't interrupt people; don't shove; don't steal; don't lie. To the child, all these prohibitions appear identical ("It's not nice"). The distinction between the ethical and the aesthetic will come only later, and gradually. Politeness thus precedes morality, or rather, morality at first is nothing more than politeness: a compliance with usage and its established rules, with the normative play of appearances - a compliance with the world and the ways of the world. — Andre Comte-Sponville

If you wish to be thought a good estate manager, or a good horseman, or a good physician, or a good flute player without really being one, just imagine all the tricks you have to invent just to keep up appearances. You might succeed at first, but in the end you're going to be exposed as an impostor. — Xenophon

Nothing moves me more than courage: so total a sacrifice deserved complete trust from me. But she never believed that I trusted her, since she did not suspect how much I distrusted others. In spite of appearances to the contrary, I do not regret having yielded to Sophie as much as it lay in my nature to do; at the first glance I had caught sight of something in her incorruptible, with which one could make a compact as sure, and as dangerous, as with an element itself. Fire may be trusted, provided one knows that its law is to burn, or die. — Marguerite Yourcenar

Materialism has defeated feminism as well. In a sign of the times, Gloria Steinem was on the picket line when the first American DeBeers store opened on Fifth Avenue in June 2005, protesting the evictions of Bushmen in Botswana to make room for diamond miners and the charges that the company dealt in "blood diamonds" used to finance civil wars in Africa.
Her presence meant nothing to young Hollywood beauties who are pleased to shill for the diamond industry in magazine layouts and personal appearances.
As Steinem stood outside, Lindsay Lohan was inside the party, gushing over the possibility that she could get to wear one of the big rocks.
Asked by reporters about the Bushmen controversy, she shrugged it off: "I don't get involved in any drama. — Maureen Dowd

The fear of appearances is the first symptom of impotence. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

In the first book I shall describe all the positions of the spheres, along with the motions which I attribute to the Earth, so that the book will contain as it were the general structure of the universe. In the remaining books I relate the motions of the remaining stars, and all the spheres, to the mobility of the Earth, so that it can be thence established how far the motions and appearances of the remaining stars and spheres can be saved, if they are referred to the motions of the Earth. — Nicolaus Copernicus

It's not about outward appearances but inward significance. A grandeur in the world, but not of the world, a grandeur that the world doesn't understand. That first glimpse of pure otherness, in whose presence you bloom out and out and out.
A self one does not want. A heart one cannot help. — Donna Tartt

When I did '1,2,3,4' on 'Sesame Street' they'd rewritten the song and made it about counting. At first, I balked. I was like, 'Counting to four? That's where we're going with this?' Then they sent me appearances by other people like James Blunt doing 'You're Beautiful' as 'My Triangle.' — Feist

All phenomena are embraced within a single self-knowing awareness.
Even though they arise as the totality of samsara and nirvana,
the phenomena of the world of appearances and possibilities
limitless, boundless - arise from basic space.
Therefore, they are subsumed within basic space from which the first arise. — Longchen Rabjam

We first share the life by which things exist, and afterwards see them as appearances in nature, and forget that we have shared their cause. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

My dear boy, looking like a thing has little to do with being a thing. Be the thing first, and you will grow to resemble it. — Liam Perrin

The first stage of the economy's domination of social life brought about an evident degradation of being into having - human fulfillment was no longer equated with what one was, but with what one possessed. The present stage, in which social life has become completely dominated by the accumulated productions of the economy, is bringing about a general shift from having to appearing - all "having" must now derive its immediate prestige and its ultimate purpose from appearances. At the same time all individual reality has become social, in the sense that it is shaped by social forces and is directly dependent on them. Individual reality is allowed to appear only if it is not actually real. — Guy Debord

When someone reads a text whose meaning he wants to comprehend, he does not despise the signs and letters, calling them deceptive, contingent, and worthless husks, but rather he reads them, he studies and loves them, letter by letter. But I, the I who wished to read the book of the world and the book of my own essential being, I have, for the sake of a previously imagined meaning, held these signs and letters in contempt, calling the world of appearances deception, calling my eye and my tongue themselves contingent, and worthless appearances. No, this is over, I have awakened, I have indeed awakened, and today is the first day of my new life." --Siddhartha — Hermann Hesse

But that is the way of life, and that was but one of the first times, among no few to come, that I was taught a useful lesson about how appearances trump truth, and how villains hide their vices behind masks of piety, honour, and decency. And that to denounce evildoers without proof, attack them with weapons, trust blindly in reason or justice, is often the fastest road toward one's own perdition, while the scoundrels who use influence or money as a shield remained untouched. — Arturo Perez-Reverte

No cat out of its first fur can ever be deceived by appearances. Unlike human beings, who enjoy them. — Peter S. Beagle

For at the heart of the uniform, reasoning is shaky and elusive: a mind in search of ideas should first stock up on appearances. — Francis Ponge

Stupid women were lured into it and assured they would become young and beautiful if they let themselves be pummeled and pounded and smeared with sticky creams, and have their faces lifted and their stomachs flattened. They paid a lot of money to Madame Olympia, who would put a little bit of magic into the creams and ointments that she used so that at first they did look marvelous. But it was the kind of magic that wore off very quickly, leaving the women even uglier than before so that they would rush back to her and pay her more money and the whole thing would start again. — Eva Ibbotson

My husband was a pilot. He flew Elvis when Elvis first started making appearances around the country. — Minnie Pearl