quotations about beards
You should be women,
And yet your beards forbid me to interpret
That you are so.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Macbeth
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
Ere on thy chin the springing beard began
To spread a doubtful down, and promise man.
MATTHEW PRIOR
An Ode to the Memory of the Honourable Colonel George Villiers
Growing a beard is like undertaking a flight. First you have the idea which you dare not reveal to a soul. You feel that there will be wide open spaces you cannot cover. If it fails, have you the courage to face the condescending pity which people have for failures? If it succeeds, have you the endurance to be pleasant to everyone who asks why you did it?
SIR FRANCIS CHICHESTER
Lonely Sea and Sky
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
The only reason to shave your beard is the joy of growing it again.
ANONYMOUS
This beard is like a winter night, long, dark, and cold.
GEORGE LAMB
New Arabian Nights Entertainments
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
Men for their sins
Have shaving, too, entailed upon their chins--
A daily plague.
LORD BYRON
Don Juan
'Tis merry in hall
Where beards wag all.
THOMAS TUSSER
Hundred Points of Good Husbandry
It's a little tragic, it's a little weird
ZZ Top are prisoners of their beards
Imagine them weightless in outerspace
Beards and shades flyin' all over the place
CHRISTINE LAVIN
"Prisoners of Their Hairdos"
And slight Sir Robert with his watery smile
And educated whisker.
ALFRED LORD TENNYSON
Edwin Morris
Any man can start a beard. A true man never finishes one.
ANONYMOUS
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
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
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"
A beard creates lice, not brains.
AMMIANUS
epigram
Thy face is valanced since I saw thee last;
comest thou to beard me?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Hamlet
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