The eyes those silent tongues of love.
—Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish Novelist
It is only at the first encounter that a face makes its full impression on us.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German Philosopher
A strange and somewhat impassive physiognomy is often, perhaps, an advantage to an orator, or leader of any sort, because it helps to fix the eye and fascinate the mind.
—Charles Cooley (1864–1929) American Sociologist
The tartness of his face sours ripe grapes.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
The features of our face are hardly more than gestures which force of habit made permanent. Nature, like the destruction of Pompeii, like the metamorphosis of a nymph into a tree, has arrested us in an accustomed movement.
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922) French Novelist
Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
A good face they say, is a letter of recommendation. O Nature, Nature, why art thou so dishonest, as ever to send men with these false recommendations into the World!
—Henry Fielding (1707–54) English Novelist, Dramatist
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
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
The human face is the organic seat of beauty. It is the register of value in development, a record of Experience, whose legitimate office is to perfect the life, a legible language to those who will study it, of the majestic mistress, the soul.
—Eliza Farnham (1815–64) American Reformer, Writer
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
I think your whole life shows in your face and you should be proud of that.
—Lauren Bacall (1924–2014) American Film Actress
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
He had a face like a blessing.
—Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish Novelist
The faces of most American women over thirty are relief maps of petulant and bewildered unhappiness.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American Novelist
Every man over forty is responsible for his face.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
A man’s face as a rule says more, and more interesting things, than his mouth, for it is a compendium of everything his mouth will ever say, in that it is the monogram of all this man’s thoughts and aspirations.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German Philosopher
The face is the index of the mind.
—Common Proverb
We can see nothing whatever of the soul unless it is visible in the expression of the countenance; one might call the faces at a large assembly of people a history of the human soul written in a kind of Chinese ideograms.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–99) German Philosopher, Physicist
Tom’s great yellow bronze mask all draped upon an iron framework. An inhibited, nerve-drawn; dropped face—as if hung on a scaffold of heavy private brooding; and thought.
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist
Her face was her chaperone.
—Rupert Hughes (1872–1956) American Novelist, Film Director, Military Officer
People remain what they are, even when their faces fall to pieces.
—Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German Poet, Playwright, Theater Personality
Wicked thoughts and worthless efforts gradually set their mark on the face, especially the eyes.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German Philosopher
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
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
The serial number of a human specimen is the face, that accidental and unrepeatable combination of features. It reflects neither character nor soul, nor what we call the self. The face is only the serial number of a specimen.
—Milan Kundera (1929–2023) Czech-French Writer, Literary Philosopher
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
The faces which have charmed us the most escape us the soonest.
—Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish Novelist, Poet, Playwright, Lawyer
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
When matters are desperate we must put on a desperate face.
—Robert Burns (1759–96) Scottish Poet, Songwriter
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