Quotes & Sayings About Outward Appearances

I have yet to meet a man as fond of high moral conduct as he is of outward appearances. — Confucius

It is odd to think that there is a word for something which, strictly speaking, does not exist, namely, "rest." We distinguish between living and dead matter; between moving bodies and bodies at rest. This is a primitive point of view. What seems dead, a stone or the proverbial "door-nail," say, is actually forever in motion. We have merely become accustomed to judge by outward appearances; by the deceptive impressions we get through our senses. — Max Born

Clinging to one's outward appearance interferes with living. — Kobo Abe

The world more often rewards outward signs of merit than merit itself. — La Rochefoucaul

Here before us was sufficient evidence to show that it really was an entrance to a tomb, and by the seals, to all outward appearances that it was intact. — Howard Carter

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

There is a place deep, deep inside every person that is hidden and hard to find. If things get bad enough and life gets too hard, though, some people will go to that place and never come back from it. Certainly, all outward appearances will suggest otherwise. They will look as they always did. They may even act somewhat like their old selves, but the trut is, the real truth is that they are hiding in this place deep inside where no one can touch or hurt them anymore. — Victoria Forester

A thoughtful observer of the scientific betting shop, the biologist Sir Peter Medawar, has said: 'I cannot give any scientist of any age better advice than this: the intensity of the conviction that a hypothesis is true has no bearing on whether it is true or not.' But as Medawar goes on to note, conviction is an incentive to work. Science is one of the most passionate of human activities: how else would researchers be sustained through the long weeks or years of drudgery, why otherwise should Hoyle and Wickramasinghe spend so much time in correspondence with school matrons? If appearances contradict this, it is because all gamblers pride themselves on keeping their outward cool. — Nigel Calder

I take in his smooth cheeks, his rough chin and jaw, the developing wrinkles at the corners of his eyes.
'We fall in love with somebody who maybe seems like a bad match,' Tully says, 'and our friends run around saying 'What does he see in her?' What he sees in her is what's hidden from everyone else. He's fallen in love with something invisible.'
'Or possibly he's made a common mistake,' I say, gazing at Tully. 'He was needy. He fell for outward appearances. He projected onto this person whatever it was he'd always longed for in a relationship, whatever he hungered for in life. He fell in love with the idea of love.'
'That's a pretty cynical point of view,' Tully says. — Jane Lotter

By outward appearances, Cantabrigia Five was a video journalist. But it made sense that, in a world where no police or military action could be judged successful unless it looked good to ordinary persons watching it on video screens, she was also a general. — Neal Stephenson

During our stay in Newport Beach, the Iranian Revolution took place and a group of Americans were taken hostage in the American embassy in Tehran. Overnight, Iranians living in America became, to say the least, very unpopular. For some reason, many Americans began to think that all Iranians, despite outward appearances to the contrary, could at any given moment get angry and take prisoners. — Firoozeh Dumas

For me, the Immaculate Conception is the feast of 'passive action,' the action that functions simply by the transmission through us of divine energy. Purity, in spite of outward appearances, is essentially an active virtue, because it concentrates God in us and on those who are subject to our influence. — Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

Conversion must mean more than just being a 'card-carrying' member of the church with a tithing receipt, a membership card, a temple recommend, etc. It means to overcome the tendencies to criticize and to strive continually to improve inward weaknesses and not merely the outward appearances. — Harold B. Lee

We do not have to discover in which of several people Christ is to be found; we must look for Him in them all. And not in an experimental spirit, to discover whether He is in them . . . but with the absolute certainty that He is. . . . Christ does not choose to be known through outward appearances - even the appearance of virtue. — Caryll Houselander

A sure way of retaining the grace of heaven is to disregard outward appearances, and diligently to cultivate such things as foster amendment of life and fervour of soul, rather than to cultivate those qualities that seem most popular. — Thomas A Kempis

We'll erase those who want to use us for our family prestige ...
... and erase those girls who try to apply their patronizing psychology theories on us ...
... and those stupid adults who only judge us by our outward appearances ...
We'll erase them all from our consciousness. — Bisco Hatori

Alfred T. Slipper was a janitor. Most of the time (often, in fact) they treated him with disdain. They had no idea of the astonishing acts of heroism, the blinding light, contained within his outward humdrum disguise.
Only Alfred's parakeet, Dolores, knew who he was and what he could do. — Kate DiCamillo

Authority can be faked. That's why impersonating a police officer is a crime. Sometimes the outward appearances of authority can be deceiving. — John Ortberg

There is so much more to this world then outward appearances. Our society basks in the illusion of normalcy every day, and hides from the truth every night. — Amber Benson

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

Outward appearances are deceptive. What's within them, beneath them, is what matters. — Ryan Holiday

Perhaps that is why we humans are so devoted to animals, because they are not turned off by the outward appearances people so often judge us by.We may love horses for their sheer beauty but I don't think they fall in love with us for ours. Nor do they need to know how much we have achieved or how we rank on a best-seller list. They accept us for who we are. — Susan Richards

Life's tempering and altering process often takes the form of adversity, and, as far as outward appearances are concerned, seems to be working against us when it is actually working for us. — Chris Prentiss

There's something about outward appearances that has always been important to me. I always thought I was so ugly. I mean, I really did. I remember being in L.A. at my mom's house as a little kid and just staring into the mirror for hours. It was like, if I looked long enough, maybe I'd finally be handsome. It never worked. I just got uglier and uglier. Nothing about me ever seemed good enough. And there was this sadness inside me - this hopelessness. Focusing on my physical appearance was at least easier than trying to address the internal shit. — Nic Sheff

You cannot judge by outward appearances; the soul is only transparent to its Maker. — Hosea Ballou

Everything found in this world must have its counterpart in the worlds above. Kabbalists have a phrase to describe this process: As above, so below. Our world is the seeable, touchable, hearable, smellable, and tastable form of all the hidden spiritual worlds. There is nothing in our physical world that does not come from the worlds above. Kabbalah tells us that everything we see in this world is only a reflection, an approximation, a clue, to something beyond outward appearances. — Philip S. Berg

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

Outward appearances mean everything. — Simone Elkeles

Many have been deceived by outward appearances and have proceeded to write and teach about good works and how they justify without even mentioning faith ... Wearying themselves with many works, they never come to righteousness. — Martin Luther

Who would you impress if the world was blind? — Shannon L. Alder

It is good for us to have trials and troubles at times, for they often remind us that we are on probation and ought not to hope in any worldly thing. It is good for us sometimes to suffer contradiction, to be misjudged by men even though we do well and mean well. These things help us to be humble and shield us from vainglory. When to all outward appearances men give us no credit, when they do not think well of us, then we are more inclined to seek God Who sees our hearts. Therefore, a man ought to root himself so firmly in God that he will not need the consolations of men. — Thomas A Kempis

The status of our relationship with God has moved from conflict to reconciliation, ensuring peace and communion with God. Our very being is transferred from the impending death of this world to the promised life of God's new creational order, leading us to an increased appetite for that which pleases God and a growing distaste for that which does not please him. Finally, our perspective is altered so that we no longer focus on outward appearances but on a radical interior radiance (vv. 12, 16). — Anonymous

To call him a dog hardly seems to do him justice, though inasmuch as he had four legs, a tail, and barked, I admit he was, to all outward appearances. But to those who knew him well, he was a perfect gentleman. — Hermione Gingold

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

Drawing instruction is a training towards perception, exact observation and exact presentation not of the outward appearances of an object, but of its constructive elements, its lawful forces-tensions, which can be discovered in given objects and of the logical structures of same-education toward clear observation and clear rendering of the contexts, whereby surface phenomena are an introductory step towards the three-dimensional. — Wassily Kandinsky

I wasn't sure about that, but one never knows. Sometimes a neighborhood, like a culture or civilization, is strong enough to absorb and acculturate any number of newcomers. But I don't know if that's true around here any longer. The outward forms and appearances look the same - [ ... ]- but the substance has been altered. — Nelson DeMille

Now, because men of our contemporary age are caught up in the ascetic view of a life-denying religious system, but in spite of this cannot deny the primal laws of nature, a distorted morality had to be developed, which spreads hypocritical appearances over hidden actions. This has brought to a head all those outward forms of modern life, whose vacuousness and corruption are now beginning to disgust us. — Guido Von List

true beauty has nothing to do with outward appearances. The more we focus on what we look like on the outside, the more insecure we become. The world has an impossibly narrow definition of beauty, and by those standards, we'll never be thin enough, pretty enough, or good enough. — Kylie Bisutti

True leaders don't look at just the outward appearances in the selection of team members, they look at one's core values and heart. — Farshad Asl

Honey, God loves you just as you are. As people who have been created by God, we are infinitely precious to Him because we are His creation. Regardless of our outward appearance, we are all made with that spiritual potential to relate directly to Him, spirit to Spirit ...
You may not look so favourably on your outward appearance, but when God looks at you, He sees His beautiful daughter. While God cares deeply about our own personal struggles with our outward appearances, whatever they may be, He cares even more for you. Your outward appearance does not change God's acceptance of you, and it certainly does not change the way He feels about you. — Corallie Buchanan