Countenance Quotes - Page 9

• Let men say we be men of good government, being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal.

  William Shakespeare

  Moon, Men, Sea

  William Shakespeare (1833). “The plays and poems of William Shakspeare”, p.362

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• It is a hard matter for a man to lie all over, nature having provided king's evidence in almost every member. The hand will sometimes act as a vane, to show which way the wind blows, even when every feature is set the other way; the knees smite together and sound the alarm of fear under a fierce countenance; the legs shake with anger when all above us calm.

  Washington Allston

  Kings, Lying, Blow

  Washington ALLSTON, Richard Henry DANA (Author of “Two Years before the Mast.”.) (1850). “Lectures on Art, and Poems ... Edited by Richard Henry Dana, Jr”, p.170

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• A noble heart, like the sun, showeth its greatest countenance in its lowest estate.

  Philip Sidney

  Heart, Character, Noble

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• When she took her opposite place in the carriage corner, the brightness in her face was so charming to behold, that on her exclaiming, "What beautiful stars and what a glorious night!" the Secretary said "Yes," but seemed to prefer to see the night and the stars in the light of her lovely little countenance, to looking out of window.

  Charles Dickens

  Love, Beautiful, Stars

  Charles Dickens, George Cruikshank (1868). “The Works of Charles Dickens: Our mutual friend”, p.461

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• They that go down to the sea in ships' see strange things, but what they tell is oft-times stranger still. A faculty for romancing is imparted by a seafaring life as readily and surely as a rolling gait and a weather-beaten countenance. A fine imagination is one of the gifts of the ocean-witness the surprising and unlimited power of expression and epithet possessed by the sailor. And a fine imagination will frequently manifest itself in other ways besides swear words.

  Gertrude Bacon

  Inspirational, Funny, Ocean

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• A perfect character might be attended with the inconvenience of being envied and hated; and that a benevolent man should allow a few faults in himself, to keep his friends in countenance.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Character, Men, Perfect

  Benjamin Franklin (2008). “The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin”, p.134, Applewood Books

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• The truly great and good, in affliction, bear a countenance more princely than they are wont; for it is the temper of the highest hearts, like the palm-tree, to strive most upwards when it is most burdened.

  Philip Sidney

  Heart, Adversity, Tree

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• Hamlet is to Macbeth somewhat as the Ghost is to the Witches. Revenge, or ambition, in its inception may have a lofty, even a majestic countenance, but when it has "coupled hell" and become crime, it grows increasingly foul and sordid. We love and admire Hamlet so much at the beginning that we tend to forget that he is as hot-blooded as the earlier Macbeth when he kills Polonius and the King, cold-blooded as the later Macbeth or Iago when he sends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to death.

  Harold Clarke Goddard

  Kings, Revenge, Ambition

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• A private man has always the liberty (because thought is free) to believe or not believe in his heart those acts that have been given out for miracles, according as he shall see what benefits can accrue by men's belief, to those that pretend, or countenance them, and thereby conjecture whether they be miracles or lies.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Lying, Believe, Heart

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• The editor sat in his sanctum, his countenance furrowed with care, His mind at the bottom of business, his feet at the top of a chair, His chair-arm an elbow supporting, his right hand upholding his head, His eyes on his dusty old table, with different documents spread.

  Will Carleton

  Eye, Hands, Editors

  Will Carleton (1873). “Farm Ballads”, p.127

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• Thou hast evoked in me profounder spells than the evoking one, thou face! For me, thou hast uncovered one infinite, dumb, beseeching countenance of mystery, underlying all the surfaces of visible time and space.

  Herman Melville

  Space, Dumb, Faces

  Herman Melville (2016). “Pierre; or The Ambiguities”, p.69, Herman Melville

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• A century ago mainstream science was still quite happy to countenance vital and mental powers which had a 'downwards' causal influence on the physical realm in a straightforwardly interactionist way. It was only in the middle of the last century that science finally concluded that there are no such non-physical forces. At which point a whole pile of smart philosophers (Feigl, Smart, Putnam, Davidson, Lewis) quickly pointed out that mental, biological and social phenomena must themselves be physical, in order to produce the physical effects that they do.

  David Papineau

  Smart, Order, Way

  "Physical". Interview with Richard Marshall, www.3ammagazine.com. April 8, 2013.

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• A Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses. I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face, that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me, is transformed in intercession into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died, the face of a forgiven sinner.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Christian, Brother, Hate

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Samuel Wells (2015). “Life Together”, p.65, SCM Press

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• Human life is so full of pain, that once past the youthful delusion that a sad countenance is interesting, and an incurable woe the most delightful thing possible, the mind instinctively turns where it can get rest, and cheer and sunshine. And the friend who can bring to it the largest portion of these is, of a natural necessity, the most useful, the most welcome, and the most dear.

  Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

  Cheer, Pain, Real

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• When friends grow cold, and the converse of intimates languishes into vapid civility and commonplace, these only continue the unaltered countenance of happier days, and cheer us with that true friendship which never deceived hope, nor deserted sorrow.

  Washington Irving

  Cheer, True Friend, Real

  Washington Irving (1840). “The Works of Washington Irving”, p.192

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• A beam of God's countenance is enough to fill the heart of a believer to overflowing. It is enough to light up the pale cheek of a dying saint with seraphic brightness, and make the heart of the lone widow sing for joy.

  Robert Murray M'Cheyne

  Christian, Heart, Light

  Robert Murray M'Cheyne (1848). “Sermons”, p.116

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• We all cry out that the world is corrupt,--and I fear too justly,--but we never reflect, what we have to thank for it, and that itis our open countenance of vice, which gives the lye to our private censures of it, which is its chief protection and encouragement.

  Laurence Sterne

  Encouragement, Giving, Hypocrisy

  Laurence Sterne (1873). “The Works of Laurence Sterne ...: With a Life of the Author”, p.130, London : Bickers, H. Sotheran

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• To higher or lower ends, they [the majority of mankind] move too often with something of a sad countenance, with hurried and ignoble gait, becoming, unconsciously, something like thorns, in their anxiety to bear grapes; it being possible for people, in the pursuit of even great ends, to become themselves thin and impoverished in spirit and temper, thus diminishing the sum of perfection in the world, at its very sources.

  Walter Pater

  Moving, Ambition, People

  Walter Pater (2011). “The Works of Walter Pater”, p.60, Cambridge University Press

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• Teddy Kennedy's big new idea is to wheel out his 18th proposal to raise the minimum wage. He's been doing this since wages were paid in Spanish doubloons (which coincidentally are now mostly found underwater). Kennedy refuses to countenance any risky schemes like trying to grow the economy so people making minimum wage get raises because they've been promoted. Kennedy's going down and he's taking the party with him! (Recognize the pattern?)

  Ann Coulter

  Party, Ideas, People

  "Come back, liberals!". www.anncoulter.com. March 9, 2005.

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• My hopes of a future life are all founded upon the Gospel of Christ and I cannot cavil or quibble away... the whole tenor of His conduct by which He sometimes positively asserted and at others countenances His disciples in asserting that He was God.

  John Quincy Adams

  Sometimes, Christ, Tenors

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• To be gentle and kind, modest and truthful, to be full of faith and integrity, doing no wrong is of God; goodness sheds a halo of loveliness around every person who possesses it, making their countenances beam with light, and their society desirable because of its excellency. They are loved of God, of holy angels, and of all the good earth, while they are hated, envied, admired, and feared by the wicked.

  Brigham Young

  Integrity, Angel, Light

  Brigham Young (1867). “Journal of Discourses”, p.240

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• Her countenance was all expression; her eyes were not dark but impenetrably deep; you seemed to discover space after space in their intellectual glance.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

  Eye, Dark, Expression

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1833). “The Last Man”, p.14

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• It is a base thing for the countenance to be obedient and to regulate and compose itself as the mind commands, and for the mind not to be regulated and composed by itself.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Mind, Command, Obedient

  Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Lucius Annaeus Seneca (2015). “Stoic Six Pack: Meditations of Marcus Aurelius The Golden Sayings Fragments and Discourses of Epictetus Letters from a Stoic and The Enchiridion”, p.39, Lulu.com

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• Custom is a violent and treacherous school mistress. She, by little and lithe, slyly and unperceived, slips in the foot of her authority; but having by this gentle and humble beginning, with the benefit of time, fixed and established it, she then unmasks a furious and tyrannic countenance, against which we have no more the courage or the power so much as to lift up our eyes.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Humble, School, Eye

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• If I make dark my countenance, I shut my life from happier chance.

  Alfred Lord Tennyson

  Dark, Negativity, Chance

  Alfred Tennyson Tennyson, Baron, Alfred Lord Tennyson (2014). “Fifty Poems”, p.31, Cambridge University Press

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