quotations about beards
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
Small show of man was yet upon his chin;
His phoenix down began but to appear.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
A Lover's Complaint
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
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
Thy face is valanced since I saw thee last;
comest thou to beard me?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Hamlet
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"
Alas, poor chin! many a wart is richer.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Troilus and Cressida
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
You call it facial hair. I call it awesomeness escaping through my face.
ANONYMOUS
A beard creates lice, not brains.
AMMIANUS
epigram
You may wear, if you choose, a beard pick-a-devant,
A beard like a hammer, or jagg'd like a saw--
A beard call'd "cathedral," and shaped like a tile,
Which the widow in Hudibras served to beguile.
A beard like a dagger--nay, don't be afraid--
A beard like a bodkin, a beard like a spade;
A beard like a sugar-loaf, beard like a fork,
A beard like a Hebrew, a beard like a Turk.
Any one of these beards may be yours if you list--
According to fancy you trim it or twist.
As to colour, that matters, I ween, not a pin--
But a bushy black beard is the surest to win.
THOMAS CAMPBELL
"The Ballad of the Beard"
His beard is like an old mop; he shall be called Grisly-beard.
JACOB & WILHELM GRIMM
"King Grisley-Beard"
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
Why do old men grow huge beards as if to proclaim a manhood that has long since fled?
JEANE WESTIN
His Last Letter
My beard wants to know if you would like a comfortable place to sit down?
VICTORIA DENAULT
Slammed
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
There was an old man with a beard,
Who said: "It is just as I feared--
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren
Have all built their nests in my beard.
EDWARD LEAR
Book of Nonsense
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
Moustache, no
Sideburns, no
Goatee, maybe
Beard, beard
PSYCHOSTICK
"Obey the Beard"