Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Appearances
Esse quam videri.
To be rather than to seem.
Latin version of the Greek maxim, found in Æschylus—Siege of Thebes.
Non teneas aurum totum quod splendet ut aurum.
Do not hold everything as gold which shines like gold.
Alanus de Insulis—Parabolæ. (In Winchester College Hall-book of 1401–2.)
O wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursel’s as ithers see us!
It wad fræ monie a blunder free us.
And foolish notion;
What airs in dress and gait wad lea’e us,
And ev’n devotion!
Burns—To a Louse.
Think not I am what I appear.
Byron—Brute of Abydos. Canto I. Sc. 12.
As large as life, and twice as natural.
Lewis Carroll (Dodgson)—Through the Looking Glass. Ch. VII.
All that glisters is not gold.
Cervantes—Don Quixote. Pt. II. Ch. XXXIII. Googe—Eglogs, etc. (1563). Udall—Ralph Royster Doyster. (1566).
But every thyng which schyneth as the gold,
Nis nat gold, as that I have herd it told.
Chaucer—Canterbury Tales. Chanounes Yemanne’s Tale. Preamble. L. 17, 362.
Hyt is not al golde that glareth.
Chaucer—House of Fame. Bk. I. L. 272.
Habit maketh no monke, ne wearing of guilt spurs maketh no knight.
Chaucer—Testament of Love. Bk. II.
Appearances to save, his only care;
So things seem right, no matter what they are.
Churchill—Rosciad. L. 299.
Que tout n’est pas or c’on voit luire.
Everything is not gold that one sees shining.
Li Diz de freire Denise Cordelier. (Circa 1300).
We understood
Her by her sight; her pure and eloquent blood
Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought.
That one might almost say her body thought.
Donne—Funeral Elegies. Of the Progress of the Soul. By occasion of Religious Death of Mistress Elizabeth Drury.
All, as they say, that glitters is not gold.
Dryden—Hind and the Panther.
Cucullus (or Cuculla) non facit monachum.
The habit does not make the monk.
Quoted by Erasmus.
Handsome is that handsome does.
Fielding—Tom Jones. Bk. IV. Ch. XII. Goldsmith—Vicar of Wakefield. Ch. I.
He was one of a lean body and visage, as if his eager soul, biting for anger at the clog of his body, desired to fret a passage through it.
Thos. Fuller—Life of the Duke of Alva.
By outward show let’s not be cheated;
An ass should like an ass be treated.
Gay—Fables. The Packhorse and Carrier. Pt. II. L. 99.
Things are seldom what they seem,
Skim milk masquerades as cream.
W. S. Gilbert—H. M. S. Pinafore.
Not all that tempts your wandering eyes
And heedless hearts is lawful prize,
Nor all that glisters gold.
Gray—Ode on a Favorite Cat.
Gloomy as night he stands.
Homer—Odyssey. Bk. XI. L. 744. Pope’s trans.
Judge not according to the appearance.
John. VII. 24.
Fronti nulla fides.
Trust not to outward show.
Juvenal—Satires. II. 8.
Garde-toi, tant que tu vivras,
De juger des gens sur la mine.
Beware so long as you live, of judging people by appearances.
La Fontaine—Fables. VI. 5.
Même quand l’oiseau marche on sent qu’il a des ailes.
Even when the bird walks one feels that it has wings.
Lemierre—Fastes. Chant. I.
All is not golde that outward shewith bright.
Lydgate—On the Mutability of Human Affairs.
All is not golde that shewyth goldishe hewe.
Lydgate—Chorle and Byrde.
He had a head which statuaries loved to copy, and a foot the deformity of which the beggars in the streets mimicked.
Macaulay—On Moore’s Life of Lord Byron. (1831).
Whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones.
Matthew. XXIII. 27.
All is not gold that glisteneth.
Middleton—A Fair Quarrel. Act V. Sc. 1.
Spectatum veniunt, veniunt spectentur ut ipsæ.
They come to see, they come that they themselves may be seen.
Ovid—Ars Amatoria. 99.
Non semper ea sunt, quæ videntur; decipit
Frons prima multos: rara mens intelligit
Quod interiore condidit cura angulo.
Things are not always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many; the intelligence of few perceives what has been carefully hidden in the recesses of the mind.
Phædrus. Bk. IV. Prol. 5.
L’habit ne fait le moine.
The dress does not make the monk.
Rabelais—Prologue. I.
All hoods make not monks.
Henry VIII. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 23.
All that glisters is not gold;
Often have you heard that told;
Many a man his life hath sold
But my outside to behold.
Merchant of Venice. Act II. Sc. 7. L. 65.
Looked as if she had walked straight out of the Ark.
Sydney Smith—Lady Holland’s Memoir. Vol. I. Ch. 7.
Gold all is not that doth golden seem.
Spenser—Faerie Queene. Bk. II. Canto VIII. St. 14.
Will she pass in a crowd? Will she make a figure in a country church?
Swift—Letter to Stella, Feb. 9, 1710.
She looks as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.
Swift—Polite Conversation. Dialogue I.
A fair exterior is a silent recommendation.
Syrus—Maxims.
Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum.
An immense, misshapen, marvelous monster whose eye is out.
Vergil—Æneid. III. 658.
Of the terrible doubt of appearances,
Of the uncertainty after all, that we may-be deluded,
That may-be reliance and hope are but speculations after all,
That may-be identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only.
May-be the things I perceive, the animals, plants, men, hills, shining and flowing waters,
The skies of day and night, colors, densities, forms, may-be these are (as doubtless they are) only apparitions, and the real something has yet to be known.
Walt. Whitman—Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances.
A man of sense can artifice disdain,
As men of wealth may venture to go plain.
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I find the fool when I behold the screen,
For ’tis the wise man’s interest to be seen.
Young—Love of Fame. Satire II. L. 193.