People remain what they are, even when their faces fall to pieces.
—Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German Poet, Playwright, Theater Personality
It has to be displayed, this face, on a more or less horizontal plane. Imagine a man wearing a mask, and imagine that the elastic which holds the mask on has just broken, so that the man (rather than let the mask slip off) has to tilt his head back and balance the mask on his real face. This is the kind of tyranny which Lawson’s face exerts over the rest of his body as he cruises along the corridors. He doesn’t look down his nose at you, he looks along his nose.
—James Fenton (b.1949) English Poet, Journalist
A face is too slight a foundation for happiness.
—Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762) English Aristocrat, Poet, Novelist, Writer
It is only at the first encounter that a face makes its full impression on us.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German Philosopher
A woman who could always love would never grow old; and the love of mother and wife would often give or preserve many charms if it were not too often combined with parental and conjugal anger. There remains in the faces of women who are naturally serene and peaceful, and of those rendered so by religion, an after-spring, and later an after-summer, the reflex of their most beautiful bloom.
—Jean Paul (1763–1825) German Novelist, Humorist
What is a face, really? Its own photo? Its make-up? Or is it a face as painted by such or such painter? That which is in front? Inside? Behind? And the rest? Doesn’t everyone look at himself in his own particular way? Deformations simply do not exist.
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish Painter, Sculptor, Artist
In thy face I see the map of honor, truth, and loyalty.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
This face is a dog’s snout sniffing for garbage, snakes nest in that mouth, I hear the sibilant threat.
—Walt Whitman (1819–92) American Poet, Essayist, Journalist, American, Poet, Essayist, Journalist
The eyes those silent tongues of love.
—Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish Novelist
A countenance habitually under the influence of amiable feelings acquires a beauty of the highest order from the frequency with which such feelings stamp their character upon it.
—Sarah Josepha Hale (1788–1879) American Poet
There are faces so fluid with expression, so flushed and rippled by the play of thought, that we can hardly find what the mere features really are.—When the delicious beauty of lineaments loses its power, it is because a more delicious beauty has appeared—that an interior and durable form has been disclosed.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. The very simplicity and nakedness of man’s life in the primitive ages imply this advantage, at least, that they left him still but a sojourner in nature. To be awake is to be alive. Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. Every man is a builder of a temple, called his body, to the god he worships, after a style purely his own, nor can he get off by hammering marble instead. We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones. Any nobleness begins at once to refine a man’s features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them. Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
After a certain number of years our faces become our biographies. We get to be responsible for our faces.
—Cynthia Ozick (b.1928) American Novelist, Short-story Writer, Essayist
The tartness of his face sours ripe grapes.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
The face is the index of the mind.
—Common Proverb
The loveliest faces are to be seen by moonlight, when one sees half with the eye, and half with the fancy.
—Christian Nestell Bovee (1820–1904) American Writer, Aphorist
Alas after a certain age, every man is responsible for his own face.
—Albert Camus (1913–60) Algerian-born French Philosopher, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist, Author
Clowns wear a face that’s painted intentionally on them so they appear to be happy or sad. What kind of mask are you wearing today?
—Unknown
That same face of yours looks like the title-page to a whole volume of roguery.
—Colley Cibber (1671–1757) English Playwright, Poet, Actor
He had a face like a benediction.
—Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish Novelist
There is in every human countenance, either a history or a prophecy, which must sadden, or at least soften, every reflecting observer.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
A beautiful face is a silent commendation.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
Look in the face of the person to whom you are speaking if you wish to know his real sentiments, for he can command his words more easily than his countenance.
—Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) English Statesman, Man of Letters
It is the common wonder of all men, how among so many million faces, there should be none alike.
—Thomas Browne (1605–82) English Author, Physician
A man finds room in the few square inches of the face for the traits of all his ancestors; for the expression of all his history, and his wants.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
I am the family face; flesh perishes, I live on, projecting trait and trace through time to times anon, and leaping from place to place over oblivion.
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English Novelist, Poet
Every European visitor to the United States is struck by the comparative rarity of what he would call a face, by the frequency of men and women who look like elderly babies. If he stays in the States for any length of time, he will learn that this cannot be put down to a lack of sensibility—the American feels the joys and sufferings of human life as keenly as anybody else. The only plausible explanation I can find lies in his different attitude to the past. To have a face, in the European sense of the word, it would seem that one must not only enjoy and suffer but also desire to preserve the memory of even the most humiliating and unpleasant experiences of the past.
—W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist
When matters are desperate we must put on a desperate face.
—Robert Burns (1759–96) Scottish Poet, Songwriter
I think your whole life shows in your face and you should be proud of that.
—Lauren Bacall (1924–2014) American Film Actress
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