quotations about beards
You should be women,
And yet your beards forbid me to interpret
That you are so.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Macbeth
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
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
The only reason to shave your beard is the joy of growing it again.
ANONYMOUS
Now Jove, in his next commodity of hair, send thee a beard!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Twelfth Night
This beard is like a winter night, long, dark, and cold.
GEORGE LAMB
New Arabian Nights Entertainments
'Tis merry in hall
Where beards wag all.
THOMAS TUSSER
Hundred Points of Good Husbandry
All the men in my family were born bearded, and most of the women.
W.C. FIELDS
attributed, The English Shaving Co.
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
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
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
Mendham was a cadaverous man with a magnificent beard. He looked, indeed, as though he had run to beard as a mustard plant does to seed.
H.G. WELLS
The Wonderful Visit
For me, the great problem growing up in England was that I had a very narrow concept of what god can be, and it was damn close to an old man with a beard.
JOHN CLEESE
The Gospel According to John Cleese
Thy face is valanced since I saw thee last;
comest thou to beard me?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Hamlet
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
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
Men for their sins
Have shaving, too, entailed upon their chins--
A daily plague.
LORD BYRON
Don Juan
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"
You call it facial hair. I call it awesomeness escaping through my face.
ANONYMOUS