quotations about beards
Why do old men grow huge beards as if to proclaim a manhood that has long since fled?
JEANE WESTIN
His Last Letter
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
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
Men for their sins
Have shaving, too, entailed upon their chins--
A daily plague.
LORD BYRON
Don Juan
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
A goatee is to beards what diamonds are to ornaments.
PAWAN MISHRA
Coinman: An Untold Conspiracy
A beard creates lice, not brains.
AMMIANUS
epigram
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
Now I know the difference between a father's rough beard and a young man's untried bristles.
STEVEN CHOPADE
attributed, goodreads
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
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
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"
If you think that to grow a beard is to acquire wisdom, a goat is at once a complete Plato.
LUCIAN
Greek Anthology
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
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
Moustache, no
Sideburns, no
Goatee, maybe
Beard, beard
PSYCHOSTICK
"Obey the Beard"
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
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