quotations about beards
Men for their sins
Have shaving, too, entailed upon their chins--
A daily plague.
LORD BYRON
Don Juan
It's always the same: if someone is against convention his only way of attacking it is by creating another convention, so that when most people are clean-shaven he grows a beard, and when beards are worn he shaves his off. He's merely changing from one convention to another.
JORGE LUIS BORGES
Jorge Luis Borges: Conversations
He was letting his hair grow, and it was only because Nature is unkind and has no regard for the immortal longings of youth that he did not attempt a beard.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM
Of Human Bondage
If certain beards are archetypal (like Santa or Satan), then what are all of us modern guys saying with our hairy Rorschachs, and why now? Is it rebellion, conformity, or a half-hearted compromise between the two? Do women like beards? Did they ever? What's the post-modern, post-feminist meaning of facial hair?
ALLAN PETERKIN
One Thousand Beards: A Cultural History of Facial Hair
All the men in my family were born bearded, and most of the women.
W.C. FIELDS
attributed, The English Shaving Co.
Now Jove, in his next commodity of hair, send thee a beard!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Twelfth Night
You should grow a beard
A beard to tell a thousand stories never told before
A beard to tell you tales, whilst the fireplace roars
THE BEAUTIFUL SOUTH
"Have Fun"
And slight Sir Robert with his watery smile
And educated whisker.
ALFRED LORD TENNYSON
Edwin Morris
The abundance of beards in periods of social unrest, times of revolt or upheaval, should be noted. It's the handiest way people have of making themselves mysterious.
MIKHAIL SEBASTIAN
For Two Thousand Years
Jimmy wearing a beard is like Beth wearing one of her big, black, shapeless sweaters that covers her butt. But she's not wearing one of those sweaters tonight. She's wearing her Goldie Hawn dress, and Jimmy's wearing a beard. Interesting.
LISA GENOVA
Love Anthony
Unless you're in an early seventies-era Eagles cover band, a founding member of a religious cult, or sleeping under a bridge in Seattle, lose the beard and get a haircut. Power doesn't have time for any form of hirsute hipster self expression.
ARI GOLD
The Gold Standard: Rules to Rule By
Lord, I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face: I had rather lie in the wollen.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Much Ado About Nothing
Beards are, like tusks or antlers, secondary sexual characters but, unlike these, they are not much use for intra-specific combat.
RICHARD M. WILSON
"On Beards", New Scientist, January 21, 1982
A beard creates lice, not brains.
AMMIANUS
epigram
If you think that to grow a beard is to acquire wisdom, a goat is at once a complete Plato.
LUCIAN
Greek Anthology
There is something about a man with a beard I cannot stand. No particular reason for it. Prejudice, I suppose. I feel the same way about cats.
CHARLES WILLEFORD
Pick-Up
My beard wants to know if you would like a comfortable place to sit down?
VICTORIA DENAULT
Slammed
Small show of man was yet upon his chin;
His phoenix down began but to appear.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
A Lover's Complaint
Moustache, no
Sideburns, no
Goatee, maybe
Beard, beard
PSYCHOSTICK
"Obey the Beard"
His beard is like the thistle of the pastures, when the northwind whistleth on the hills. Ewen hath mowed it with his cutlass, as the wildgoat goat croppeth the flower.
JAMES MACPHERSON
The Fingal of Ossian