Things Are Not As They Appear Quotes & Sayings

The great events of an age appear, to those living through them, as backdrops only to the vastly more compelling dramas of their own lives, and how could it be otherwise?
In this same way, many of the men and women there in the Hippodrome (and some who were not, but later claimed to have been) would cling to one private image or another of what transpired. They might be entirely different things, varying moments, for each of us has strings within the soul, and we are played upon in different ways, like instruments, and how could it be otherwise? — Guy Gavriel Kay

Pathology has made us acquainted with a great number of states in which the boundary lines between the ego and the external world become uncertain or in which they are actually drawn incorrectly. There are cases in which parts of a person's own body, even portions of his own mental life - his perceptions, thoughts and feelings -, appear alien to him and as not belonging to his ego; there are other cases in which he ascribes to the external world things that clearly originate in his own ego and that ought to be acknowledged by it. — Sigmund Freud

Devils so work that things which are not, appear to men as if they were real. — Lactantius

Why did she do this to me?" I mumble. "Actually, Samuel, from my preliminary scans of your internal organs, it does not appear that our mother has done anything to you. Were you in need of repair as well? If so, I am certain she will - — James Patterson

Naturalistic art, as we know it, is an art which imitates the appearance of things, not as they are in reality, but as they appear at one moment from the point of view of a single spectator. This is the effect of perspective. Nothing of this sort existed in prehistory. — Sigfried Giedion

God works in mysterious ways. Things may look good outwardly, but there may be evil contained inside. Let no one be deluded by pride that he himself has conceived good ideas or done good deeds. If everything were as it seemed, the Prophet would not have cried out with such illuminated and illuminating perspicacity, Show me things as they are! You make things appear beautiful when in reality they are ugly; You make things appear ugly when in reality they are beautiful. Show us therefore each thing as it is lest we fall into a snare and be ever errant. — Rumi

I didn't like being a leader. I always had to appear confident for the sake of the others, even when I wasn't. — Rick Riordan

Although separating mitochondria and microsomes might appear worlds apart from the determination of the molecular weight of macromolecules, certain concepts were common to the two operations and could be usefully transposed from the latter to the former. — Christian De Duve

I appear wild on the outside, but I'm a conservative businessman. — Donny Deutsch

After I left here on Saturday, I decided never to see you again."
He was sliding the frittata under the broiler, so she could only see his profile, but damn if he didn't appear to be smirking.
"I know that, darling. It wounds my pride you won't go out with me, but I can console myself with the knowledge that when you do see me, you can't keep your knickers on for ten minutes running."
She threw her cookie at him, feigning indignation. "You bastard! Are you calling me easy?"
"I like you easy. Besides, you're not to blame. Who'd want to wear wet knickers? — Ruthie Knox

There are corners in the world that are too dark to see, and there are edges that are sharper than they appear, ready to snag the unwary. There are those who do not fear the things they should, and there are those who would bargain with the devil herself for the sake of their greed.The world is made safe by a woman, yes, but it is a very big world. — E.K. Johnston

If you've been in the software business for any time at all, you
know that there are certain common problems that plague one
project after another. Missed schedules and creeping requirements
are not things that just happen to you once and then go
away, never to appear again. Rather, they are part of the territory.
We all know that. What's odd is that we don't plan our projects
as if we knew it. Instead, we plan as if our past problems are
locked in the past and will never rear their ugly heads again. Of
course, you know that isn't a reasonable expectation. — Tom DeMarco

Having Simultanagnosia (object blindness), Prosopagnosia (face blindness) and Semantic Agnosia (meaning blindness) goes in my favour with regards to abstract art living in world full of fragmented pieces when I draw it is in real time no visual memory means no "pre-formatted" picture in my mind so I go where my hand takes it's like journey that is happening in the moment, hence why I drew these without my lenses on. When I was younger I would draw pictures by "route" which made it a appear that I had a visual memory (cobbling together things out of context and making a contextual image) — Paul Isaacs

And the creature run from the cur? There thou mightst behold the great image of authority: a dog's obeyed in office.
Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand.
Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back.
Thou hotly lust'st to use her in that kind
For which thou whipp'st her. The usurer hangs the cozener.
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.
None does offend - none, I say, none. I'll able 'em.
Take that of me, my friend, who have the power
To seal th' accuser's lips. Get thee glass eyes,
And like a scurvy politician seem
To see the things thou dost not. — William Shakespeare

Lao-tzu advised, "As soon as you have a thought, laugh at it," because reality is not what we think. We perceive the world through a window colored by beliefs, interpretations, and associations. We see things not as they are but as we are. The same brain that enables us to contemplate philosophy, solve math equations, and create poetry also generates a stream of static known as discursive thoughts, which seem to arise at random, bubbling up into our awareness. Such mental noise is a natural phenomenon, no more of a problem than the dreams that appear in the sleep state. Therefore, our schooling aims not to struggle with random thoughts but to transcend them in the present moment, where no thoughts exist, only awareness. Our mind's liberation awaits not in some imagined future but here and now. — Dan Millman

There was a time when we were told ... that a sense of common interest would preside over the conduct of the respective members ... This language at the present day would appear as wild as that great part of what we now hear from the same quarter will be thought, when we shall have received further lessons from that best oracle of wisdom, experience. — Alexander Hamilton

Although we may face untold numbers that by their sheer mass appear to render us as little more than a speck in the face of them, a single person standing with God amidst any mass will always be an indomitable majority. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

If I am missed it will appear. I may be discovered by those who want to see me. I shall not be in any doubtful, or distant, or unapproachable region. — Jane Austen

Though colour may appear at first a part of painting merely mechanical, yet it still has its rules, and those grounded upon that presiding principle which regulates both the great and the little in the study of a painter. — Joshua Reynolds

I just sit down and the page just comes out and I look at it and the elements that appear on that page have a lot to do with what's going on in my life. — Cory Doctorow

Things are not always as they appear to be as. — Mike Shannon

How many others will come, Ivy? How many more will appear to kiss my wife goodbye?"
Crap-shit! No Midnight? She rolled her eyes. "No one else. I promise."
Carson turned his blue gaze on her, cold and menacing. "Do you have any idea how it felt to see his hands on you - innocent or not? I wanted to fucking kill him." He ran both his hands through his hair. "I still do. — Beth Mikell

Nutshells close and encapsulate, shelter and protect, reduce and simplify, while everything in deconstruction is turned toward opening, exposure, expansion, and complexification, toward releasing unheard of, undreamt of possibilities to come, toward cracking nutshells wherever they appear. — John D. Caputo

Sometimes the good guys get a point, Ryan. And sometimes they know how much of a rigged game is and they just want to make it appear to be fair. — Kenneth Eade

How can non-existence get sick of itself?
Everytime you wake up, you appear again out of nowhere. And so does everything else. Death just means the replacement of the usual morning waking with something else, something quite impossible even to think about. We don't even have the instrument to do it, because our mind & our world are the same thing. — Victor Pelevin

When the pupil is ready, the teacher will appear. I was your teacher. — Stephen King

The phenomenon is something real and not visionary or fictitious. There are objects approximating the shape of a disc, some of which appear flat on bottom and domed on top. These objects are as large as man-made aircraft and have a metallic or light-reflecting surface. Further they exhibit extreme rates of climb and maneuverability with no associated sound and take action which must be considered evasive when contacted by aircraft and radar. — Nathan Farragut Twining

She was too wonderful a character to be allowed to die and I realize now that I should have allowed her to appear at hte end of my book. [Ray writes about the character Clarisse] — Ray Bradbury

What then, is correctness of speech but the maintenance of the practice of others, as established by the authority of ancient speakers? But the weaker men are, the more they are troubled by such matters. Their weakness stems from a desire to appear learned, not with a knowledge of things, by which we are edified, but with a knowledge of signs, by which it is difficult not to be puffed up in some way; even a knowledge of things often makes people boastful, unless their necks are held down by the Lord's yoke. — Augustine Of Hippo

Beggin' your pardon, miss, but I was told you be the one to help me cross on to the next world."
"Who told you this?"
His eyes widen. "A fearsome creature with a head full of snakes!"
"You musn't fear her," I say, taking the man's hand and leading his toward the river. "She's as tame as a pussycat. She'd probably lick your hand given the chance."
"Didn't seem harmless," he whispers, shuddering.
"Yes, well, things are not always as they appear, sir, and we must learn to judge for ourselves. — Libba Bray

The word detox does not appear in the main textbook on cancer or the main medical textbook ... the word in medicine refers to heroin addicts and getting them off heroin ... they do not conceive that their are such things as toxins created by a tumour ... where do they think it all goes? — Ralph W. Moss

Most men appear never to have considered what a house is, and are actually though needlessly poor all their lives because they think that they must have such a one as their neighbors have. As if one were to wear any sort of coat which the tailor might cut out for him, or gradually leaving off palm-leaf hat or cap of woodchuck skin, complain of hard times because he could not afford to buy him a crown! It is possible to invent a house still more convenient and luxurious than we have, which yet all would admit that man could not afford to pay for. Shall we always study to obtain more of these things, and not sometimes be content with less? — Henry David Thoreau

Some things are not always what they appear to be.
Your thoughts lead you as far as the eyes can see. — Laqueisha Malone

Always remember what Heraclitus said: 'The death of earth is the birth of water, the death of water is the birth of atmosphere, the death of atmosphere is fire, and conversely.' Remember, too, his image of the man who forgets the way he is going; and: 'They are at variance with that with which they most continuously have converse (Reason which governs the Universe), and the things they meet with every day appear alien to them'; and again: 'We suppose that we act and speak'; and: 'We must not be like children with parents,' that is, accept things simply as we have received them. — Marcus Aurelius

Science,' said Mr Anders Anders. 'Science, not magic. I told you before: when things are not as they appear to be, it's because they're actually simpler than you think them to be. Things are never as difficult and complicated as folk believe. You'd be surprised just how straightforward and obvious things really are. The secret is in knowing how to look at them the right way. — Robert Rankin

Religio", as we know, harks back to a word (re-ligio) meaning "bond" and that is precisely what the anarch rejects. He does not go in for Moses with the Ten Commandments or, indeed, for any prophets. Nor does he wish to hear anything concerning gods or rumors about them, except as a historian - or unless they appear to him. That is when the conflicts begin.
So, if I state, "in order to pray," I am following an innate instinct that is no weaker than the sexual drive - in fact, even stronger. The two are alike insofar as foul things can happen when they are suppressed. — Ernst Junger

Possibly the only good to come out of these nightmares was that it brought Hans Hubermann, her new papa, into the room, to soothe her, to love her.
He came every night and sat with her. The first couple of times, he simply stayed - a stranger to kill the aloneness. A few nights after that, he whispered, "Shhh, I'm here, it's all right." After three weeks he held her. Trust was accumulated quickly, due primarily to the brute strength of the man's gentleness, his thereness. The girl knew from the outset that Hans Hubermann would always appear midscream, and he would not leave. (36) — Markus Zusak

Nothing is as you think it is. Lots of things are not what they appear to be. Sometimes people need you to keep searching for them, or at least asking questions on their behalf. And very often, people have been silenced and they need other people to speak for them. It's when you stop searching and asking and speaking that they really will be lost. — Sarah Moore Fitzgerald

Indeed, what is there that does not appear marvelous when it comes to our knowledge for the first time? How many things, too, are looked up on as quite impossible until they have been actually effected? — Pliny The Elder

More often than not, things and people are as they appear. — Malcolm Forbes

By telling stories, Jesus isn't somehow putting sugar in a spoon to make the medicine go down a bit easier. These stories are the medicine. These stories are an extension and explanation of Jesus' revolutionary ministry. These stories show us that things are not as they appear. Our tidy, well-packaged ideas about spirituality, faith, and reality shatter when confronted by Christ and the God he represents. — Ronnie McBrayer

Destiny sees things as they are, not as we would wish them to be. He knows there are no stories, only the illusion of stories: threads and patterns that seem to appear in the pages of existence given meaning and significance by the observer. Destiny observes worlds and molecules like motes of dust hanging in a sunbeam: every movement, every moment inevitable. Destiny walks the paths of his garden, a place of forks and paths which combine and part, seeing only what is. He is surprised by nothing. There is nothing that can surprise him, nothing that was not already written in his book. — Neil Gaiman

Things are not as they appear. — Lawrence Earle Johnson

I can remember when believing in conspiracies wasn't cool. Now, in the
second decade of the twenty-first century, more people are starting to
sense that things may not be as they appear to be. The truth in Lord Acton's
classic axiom that "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely"
becomes more self-evident every day. Politicians from the only two parties
we have to choose from break promises, are unresponsive to the will of the
people, and opt for war, austerity measures, and state control over and over
again. Gary Allen, author of the book None Dare Call It Conspiracy, defined
things perfectly when he wrote, "It must be remembered that the first job of
any conspiracy, whether it be in politics, crime or within a business office, is
to convince everyone else that no conspiracy exists. — Donald Jeffries

Those canids such as foxes, who do not live in a social group, appear to have a much more limited range of things to say. Even the kinds of sounds foxes make are indicative of their more solitary nature: they make sounds that travel well over long distances. — Alexandra Horowitz

For many things are not as they appear. Discipline must come from trust and confidence. — Ernest Hemingway,

Now as at all times I can see in the mind's eye, In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky With all their ancient faces like rain- beaten stones, And all their helms of silver hovering. — William Butler Yeats

Sometimes things aren't what they appear. We all have hurts that we don't show. — Charles Sheehan-Miles

It is in most cases more difficult to make intelligent people believe that you are what you are not, than really to become what you would appear to be. — Georg C. Lichtenberg

We therapists often make inaccurate assumptions about people living with DID and DDNOS. They often appear to be "just like us," so we often assume their experience of life reflects our own. But this is profoundly untrue. It results in a communication gap, and, as a consequence, treatment errors. Because the dominant culture is one of persons with a single sense of self, most with multiple "selves" have learned to hide their multiplicity and imitate those who are singletons (that is, have a single, non-fragmented personality). Therapists who do not understand this sometimes describe their clients' alters without acknowledging their dissociation, saying only that they have different "moods." In overlooking dissociation, this description fails to recognize the essential truth of such disorders, and of the alters. It was difficult for me to comprehend what life was like for my first few dissociative clients. — Alison Miller

He sat in the living room in the dark, an expert at waiting, a nineteen-year veteran of it, waiting for people who failed to appear, missed court dates because they forgot or didn't care, and took off. Nineteen years of losers, repeat offenders in and out of the system. Another one, that's all Louis was, slipping back into the life. — Elmore Leonard

Finding such a person makes everyone else appear so ordinary ... and if anything happens to him, you've got nothing left but to return to the ordinary world, and a kind of isolation that never existed before. — Alan Turing

Whether I appear in 'Avatar 2' or 'Avatar 3', I always feel I'm a part of the 'Avatar' team. — Stephen Lang

Does not Eternity appear dreadful to you. I often get to thinking of it and it seems so dark to me that I almost wish there was no Eternity. To think that we must forever live and never cease to be. It seems as if Death would be a relief to so endless a state of existence. — Emily Dickinson

The constrained lives of his characters made me wonder how my own existence might appear in his hands. — Ian McEwan

Everyone has their own life to lead, in their own way. You know, when you really look at things as they appear, the whole trip is simply unbelievable. Actually, it's totally ridiculous most of the time. — Art Hochberg

It's likely that only vibrations of love and gratitude appear in nature, and observations of nature shows this to be true. — Masaru Emoto

I sat down on a couch and closed my eyes and pictured myself. I couldn't see anything clearly. Wonderful! That's how it should be!
I am a blurry image constantly trying to come into focus, and just when, for an instant, I have myself in perfectly clarity, I appear as a figure in my own background, fuzzy as hair on a peach — Steve Toltz

By giving the FDA adequate resources and authority to both prevent outbreaks and intervene once they appear, we can support the administration's efforts to reassure the parents of America that the food they feed their children is the product of the safest system in the world. — Diana DeGette

To a people famishing and idle, the only acceptable form in which God can dare appear is work and promise of food as wages. — Mahatma Gandhi

Really, universally, relations stop nowhere, and the exquisite problem of the artist is eternally but to draw, by a geometry of his own, the circle within which they shall happily appear to do so. — Henry James

Ever your desire is to appear lordly and generous as a king of old ... But in desperate hours gentleness may be repaid with death.'
'So be it,' said Faramir. — J.R.R. Tolkien

The distance that the dead have gone Does not at first appear- Their coming back seems possible For many an ardent year. — Emily Dickinson

Ah, yes, superstition: it would appear to be cowardice in face of the supernatural. — Theophrastus

We are all such accidents. We do not make up history and culture. We simply appear, not by our own choice. We make what we can of our condition with the means available. We must accept the mixture as we find it - the impurity of it, the tragedy of it, the hope of it. — Saul Bellow

If one judges love according to the greatest part of the effects it produces, it would appear to resemble rather hatred than kindness. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Most men appear to think that the art of despotic government is statesmanship, and what men affirm to be unjust and inexpedient in their own case they are not ashamed of practicing towards others; they demand just rule for themselves, but where other men are concerned they care nothing about it. Such behavior is irrational; unless the one party is, and the other is not, born to serve, in which case men have a right to command, not indeed all their fellows, but only those who are intended to be subjects; just as we ought not to hunt mankind, whether for food or sacrifice . — Aristotle.

The pathologized images have moved the soul in several ways: we are afraid; we feel vulnerable and in danger; our very physical sustance and sanity appear to be menaced; we want to prevent or rectify. Especially this last seizes us. We feel protective, impelled to correct, straighten, repair. For we have confused something sick with something wrong. [ ... ]
affliction reaches us partly through the guilt it brings. Guilt belongs to the experiences of deviation, the the sense of being off, failing, 'missing the mark'. [ ... ]
However the true missing of the mark is taking the guilt literally, where failings becomes faults to be set right. This places the guilt on the shoulders of the ego who 'should not' have failed. Then pathologizing reinforces the ego's style and guilt serves a secondary gain, increasing the ego's sense of importance: ego becomes superego, drivenly busy with repairing wrongs. A guilty ego is no less egocentric than a proud one. — James Hillman

His were always lighthearted notes from the places they'd visited, scrawled in the limited space on the back of the cards, whereas hers tended to be longer and slightly rambling, unrestricted by the confines of paper. But sitting there with the cursor blinking at him, he wasn't sure what to say. There was something too immediate about an e-mail, the idea that she might get it in mere moments, that just one click of the mouse would make it appear on her screen in an instant, like magic. He realized how much he preferred the safety of a letter, the physicality of it, the distance it had to cross on its way from here to there, which felt honest and somehow more real. — Jennifer E. Smith

Once an individual shines bright walking in average light to some may appear as dim surroundings.. — Victoria Addino

To appear unambitious amongst the ambitious is to invite loathing or fear. To be in the game, but not playing with intent to win, is to be the enemy. — Josephine Hart

It helps to think of a self as being like a drop of water that goes into the ocean and becomes one with the ocean.Each drop still exists but is now part of a much larger entity; yet it still does its small part as an element of the ocean.As significant as a single drop may appear,if it were not for all the drops,there would be no ocean. — David V. Gaggin

As the highly colored birds do not fly around in the dull, leaden plains of a sandy desert, but amid all the settings of nature's leaves and blossoms, and lights and shades - nature's framework of their picture - so there are truths which do not appear well in arid fields of philosophic inquiry, but which demand the colored air and the bowers of poetry to be the setting of their charms. — David Swing

Every relationship has problems, because every person has problems, and the place that our problems appear most glaringly is in our close relationships. The key is whether or not we can hear from others where we are wrong, and accept their feedback without getting defensive. Time and again, the Bible says that someone who listens to feedback from others is wise, but someone who does not is a fool. — Henry Cloud

Your current thoughts are creating your future life. What you think about the most or focus on the most will appear as your life — Rhonda Byrne

I don't want ever to appear in a film that would embarrass a viewer. A man can take his wife, mother, and his daughter to one of my movies and never be ashamed or embarrassed for going. — John Wayne

The small figures that appear in my paintings are there only because they were there when I was working from nature on my preliminary sketches with pencil. — E. J. Hughes

To cast in my lot with Jekyll, was to die to those appetites which I had long secretly indulged and had of late begun to pamper. To cast it in with Hyde, was to die to a thousand interests and aspirations, and to become, at a blow and forever, despised and friendless. The bargain might appear unequal; but there was still another consideration in the scales; for while Jekyll would suffer smartingly in the fires of abstinence, Hyde would be not even conscious of all that he had lost. Strange as my circumstances were, the terms of this debate are as old and commonplace as man; much the same inducements and alarms cast the die for any tempted and trembling sinner; and it fell out with me, as it falls with so vast a majority of my fellows, that I chose the better part and was found wanting in the strength to keep to it. — Robert Louis Stevenson

You can stick with a few clear-cut values, which are stronger than a multitude of values and will obviously yield a stronger painting. But not all subjects or light conditions appear that way ... be sensible and paint with values that are appropriate and faithful to your subject. — Richard Schmid

He leaned over her shoulder, until his mouth was at her tingling ear. "Perhaps I'll appear at your window one midnight," he whispered, "to tempt you for a ride across earth and ocean. — Lisa Kleypas