Outward Appearances Quotes

“Ever and again, our mind may become befuddled when we have to find out what is heads or tails. Ever and again, bewilderment may strike our brain when we have to interpret the contrasts between the dark and the bright sides of things when we have got to read complex cases and assess the divergences between the iridescent outward appearances and the grisly undercurrents of particular characters. (‘"Côté cour…Côté jardin" )”
― Erik Pevernagie

“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, The Goldfinch

“Who would you impress if the world was blind?”
― Shannon L. Alder

“People outwardly project their innermost insecurities.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“The disparity between outward appearances and inner disposition had disturbed me all my life.”
― Anne Rice, Pandora

“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, Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures

“The men were not watering the grass; they were spraying it an emerald green. This was Ireland in an atomizer. The workers were coloring the dead, hurrying to finish before the Crown Prince's gaze would zoom by, perhaps peering through the bullet-proofed, tinted, heavily-armored glass of his German car. So much about the Kingdom concerned outward appearances. Veneer was as important as substance, perhaps more so.”
― Qanta A. Ahmed, In the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor's Journey in the Saudi Kingdom

“If you are to be a homeowner, you need to do all these things. You need to keep your exterior tidy. After all, it serves as an outward reflection of the stuff going on inside. Doesn't it? If the walls are crumbling, so must be your marriage. If the paint is chipping, so must be your will to live.”
― David Olimpio, This Is Not a Confession

“If there were no such thing as display in the world, my private opinion is, and I hope you agree with me, that we might get on a great deal better than we do, and might be infinitely more agreeable company than we are.”
― dickens