"Skin-deep" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pretty—really beautiful. Why, her face is a fortune: she will of course captivate a rich man; and what more can a father wish? As for Emily—I fear Emily, my dear, you're rather plain than otherwise; but what, I would ask, is beauty?—fleeting, transitory, skin-deep. The happiest marriages are those of mutual affection—not one-sided admiration: so, on the whole, I should say that my mind is easier about Emily than Jane. As for Maria, she's so clever, she can't but ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... Bessie—then she shall adopt you. Only don't be cross, little goosey. Let us go into the garden." Young Musgrave made such a burlesque of his remorse that Bessie, wounded but skin-deep, was fain to laugh too and be friends again. And thereupon they went forth together into the bosky ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... in giving less for more, is more vital than it would appear on the surface. The capitalist and labor groups are locked together in desperate battle, and neither side is swayed by moral considerations more than skin-deep. The labor group hires business agents, lawyers, and organizers, and is beginning to intimidate legislators by the strength of its solid vote; and more directly, in the near future, it will attempt to control legislation by capturing it bodily through the ballot-box. On the other hand, the capitalist ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... influence of spiritualized-intelligence has the power of transforming plainness into the beauty of old age. Physical beauty is doubtless a great advantage, and it is never lost if mind shines through it (there is nothing so unlovely as a frivolous old woman fighting to keep the skin-deep beauty of her youth); the eyes, if the life has not been one of physical suffering, usually retain their power of moving appeal; the lines of the face, if changed, may be refined by a certain spirituality; the gray hair gives dignity and softness ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... language may often be more vigorous than polite. But all that is superficial. The real test of a man is what he will do when he is put to it. When those rough fellows saw a brave task before them, all the skin-deep blackguardism dropped away; the heroic came out in supreme majesty, and they were consecrated by it more truly than any smug priest at his profitable altar. As they jumped into the boat they proved the nobility of human ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... and Nova Scotians, and "Dutchies," until one might think one talked of different species of animal, but the educated explorer flings clear of all these delusions. To him men present themselves individualised, and if they classify it is by some skin-deep accident of tint, some trick of the tongue, or habit of gesture, or such-like superficiality. And after all there exists to-day available one kind at least of unbiassed anthropological evidence. There are photographs. Let the reader turn over the pages of some such copiously illustrated work as ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... brave. It was. I was only fifteen, and I had lived all my days in the thick of the mystery stuff, while my scepticism, very recently acquired, was only skin-deep. I could be a sceptic out in the open in the sunshine. But I was afraid of the dark. And in that twilight room, the bones of the dead all about me in the big jars, why, the old lady had me scared stiff. As we say to-day, she had my goat. Only I was ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... And in that 'Picnic' he found his own forgotten work, 'In the Open Air,' the same light key of colour, the same artistic formula, but softened, trickishly rendered, spoilt by skin-deep elegance, everything being 'arranged' with infinite skill to satisfy the low ideal of the public. Fagerolles had not made the mistake of stripping his three women; but, clad in the audacious toilets of women of society, they showed no little of their persons. As for the two gallant gentlemen ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... thrust by mischance into a man's body,—a boy who could complacently pluck a butterfly, wing from wing, or cower in abject terror before a lean, nervy fellow, not half his size. He was a selfish cry-baby, hidden behind a man's mustache and stature, and glossed over with a skin-deep veneer of culture and conventionality. Yes; he was a clubman and a society man, the sort that grace social functions and utter inanities with a charm and unction which is indescribable; the sort that talk big, and cry over a toothache; the sort that put ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... other. Her mother, as a matter of duty, told her how plain she was almost every day; but the girl was not of that opinion; and when Mrs. Anerley finished her lecture (as she did nine times in ten) by turning the glass to the wall, and declaring that beauty was a snare skin-deep, with a frown of warning instead of a smile of comfort, then Mary believed in her looking-glass again, and had the smile of comfort ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... hedge-pig, 'remember I'm the baker's boy in my mind and soul. My hedge-pigginess is only skin-deep. Pick me up, dearest of Princesses, and let us go ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... all, but skin-deep," said our friend the dean; "it is a cutaneous malady, produced by external irritants. Below the surface there is a deep spring of personal loyalty, which needs only a touch like that of the prophet's wand to enable it to gush forth in healing floods. Her Majesty might ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... are transgressors, and surely it is a fact that if we be transgressors that is the most important thing about us—far more important than all these diversities of which I have been speaking. They are skin-deep, this is the central truth, that we have souls which ought to stand in a living relation of glad obedience to our Father in heaven; and which, alas! do stand in an attitude often of sulky alienation, often of indifference, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... of Moses was only skin-deep. It faded away, and left no trace. It effaced none of the marks of sorrow and care, and changed none of the lines of that strong, stern face. But, says Paul, the glory which we behold sinks inward, and changes us as we look, into its own image. Thus the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... stings in the minds of his hearers." Like his, the eloquence of the Declaration, not contradicting, but enforcing, sentiments of the truest humanity, has left stings that have penetrated more than skin-deep into my mind and never can they be extracted by all the surgery of murder; never can the throbbings they have created be assuaged by all the emollient cataplasms of robbery and confiscation. I ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... doctor had kept thee longer in his house, and had shewn unto thee the danger of idleness, which hath often led unto deer-stealing and poetry. In thee we already know the one, although the distemper hath eaten but skin-deep for the present; and we have the testimony of two burgesses on the other. The pursuit of poetry, as likewise of game, is unforbidden to ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... we should not have reforms, then we must do without them. Till we can convert the Will of the People, we must abide by it. Anyway, I have always thought this objection (which, by the way, is not, as Artemus Ward would say, "writ sarkastic") an exceedingly illuminating fact. It shows how skin-deep is the democratic principle in the minds of many men who think themselves strong Radicals. They do not really believe in submitting to the Will of the People. They want to do what they think is good for the People, but they have no true sense of freedom. They do not realise ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... morals, the education of his children. All these are the true realities of life to him; but the beauty which changes to deformity by the small-pox, which fades under dyspepsia, grows stale by habit, and is worn threadbare by the end of twenty years, is only a skin-deep grace which he does not value. Perhaps he is right. Certainly, some of the happiest marriages among one's acquaintances are those where the wife has not one perceptible physical charm, and where the whole force of ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... "For, Madam," said she, "Miss is a beauty!—And we see no French beauties like Master Davers and Miss."—"Beauty! my dear," said I; "what is beauty, if she be not a good girl? Beauty is but a specious, and, as it may happen, a dangerous recommendation, a mere skin-deep perfection; and if, as she grows up, she is not as good as Miss Goodwin, she shall be ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... further, I would just observe that Mr. Fortescue's cynicism, which, when I first knew him, had rather repelled me, was only skin-deep. Though he held human life rather cheaper than I quite liked, he was a kind and liberal master and a generous giver. His largesses were often princely and invariably anonymous, for he detested everything that savored of ostentation and ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... would have risen if the moon had really fallen into it. When the newspapers came out I read more particulars: that a barber in the Via Lincoln had been so much frightened that he cut the throat of the customer he was shaving, fortunately, however, no damage was done as the wound was only skin-deep; that a woman ran naked into the Via Garibaldi, not having time in her fright to put any clothes on; that a waiter handing a dish to a lady in the Birraria Svizzera dropped it on her silk dress, which was ruined; and that a priest in the Quattro Canti was seen moving his arms like ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... first part I am less a judge than most people, having never travelled westward of Staunton, so as to know any thing of the face of the country; nor much indulged myself in geological inquiries, from a belief that the skin-deep scratches, which we can make or find on the surface of the earth, do not repay our time with as certain and useful deductions, as our pursuits in some other branches. The subject of our winds is more familiar to me. On that, the views you have taken are always ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... "Skin-deep, and valued at a pin, Is beauty such as VENUS owns— HER beauty is beneath her skin, And lies in layers on her bones. The other sailors of the crew They always calls her ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... there was any little care to take, any service to render. Mrs. Argenter did not miss her; she read a great deal, and slept a great deal, and Sylvie was rarely gone long at a time. She was always ready at twilight to play backgammon, or a game of what she called "skin-deep chess," for her mother was not able to bear the exertion or excitement of chess in real, deep earnest. Sylvie brought her sewing, also,—work for Neighbor Street it was, mostly,—into the gray parlor, and "sewed for two," on ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... for a second, as might one look at an unpleasant child who is a disappointment. Then she for the first time showed a little wrath towards him. Up to that moment her calm, maddening attitude of skin-deep sympathy had been unbroken. She spoke sharply, now, however, as she countered: "That will ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... that was responsible for the robbery. At the least, he may have changed his mind, seeing things getting too warm in police circles here. But never forget to keep one eye open when dealing with such a slippery customer, for his repentance is only skin-deep at ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... nothing for what sort of mind and character are possessed by your future wife. The skin-deep part is all that ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... He would be a very clumsy serpent, if he did not. One cannot have successive layers of friendships any more than the snake has successive layers of skins. One must adopt some system to guard against a congestion of the heart from plethora of loves. I go in for the much-abused fair-weather, skin-deep, April-shower friends,—the friends who will drop off, if let alone,—who must be kept awake to be kept at all,—who will talk and laugh with you as long as it suits your respective humors and you ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... taught me," he said, "that the difference in men is only skin-deep. The same Manitou made us all. Cheenbuk, my son, I am grateful to you for your ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... helped forward good marriages later on. Pauline Lister was apportioned to me for two whole seasons, but she eventually married the man on whose jolly old staircase I painted her. Why didn't I come a cropper over any of them? Because there were too many, I suppose. Also, the attraction was skin-deep. I don't mind telling you quite frankly: the only one whose beauty used to cause me a real pang was Lady Brand. But when I had painted it and shown it to the world in its perfection, I was content. I asked no more of any woman than to paint her, and find her paintable. ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... Betty," cried the small sinner, emerging suddenly from the shelter and seizing her round the waist, "but you know this soberness is but 'skin-deep,' as Chloe says, and you need not cease to be merry because you are sixteen since yesterday. Come, let's find the herbs," and joining hands the two ran swiftly off to the shore, Betty tucking up her habit with easy grace as she went. The occupant of the covert raised his head carefully and ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... did not hear what. He was white and trembling, in pitiable case even to eyes that could only see skin-deep; but the doctor's step came beating like a drum to him, and he was solidly seated when the doctor ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... talking of her lover touched a sympathetic chord in the breast of her mistress. Grand passions were grand follies in Angelique's estimation, which she was less capable of appreciating than even her maid; but flirtation and coquetry, skin-deep only, she could understand, and relished beyond all other enjoyments. It was just now like medicine to her racking thoughts to listen to ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... clean smock-frocks, with country roses on their once sickly and sunken cheeks. One might have read Will Grange's character in his kind, honest face; and his wife looked like a morning in May, all sweetness, brightness, and beauty,— such beauty as is not merely skin-deep. ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.
... of their physical powers, the experience of their courage and the revelation of their inherent brutality. The substratum of primitive ferocity which exists at the bottom of most of us rushes to the surface, on occasion, with curious vehemence, and under the skin-deep varnish of modern civilisation, our hearts swell sometimes with a nameless sanguinary fury, and visions of carnage rise up before us. Inhaling the hot and acrid exhalations of his horse, Andrea Sperelli felt that none of the delicate perfumes affected ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... I own to "insularity," although 'Tis fall'n from fashion, as full well I know. For somehow, being a plain and simple wight, I am skin-deep a child of the new light, But chiefly am mere Englishman below, Of island-fostering; and can hate a foe, And trust my kin before the Muscovite. Whom shall I trust if not my kin? And whom Account so near in natural bonds as these Born of ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... around &c. 227. place exteriorly, place outwardly, place outside; put out, turn out. Adj. exterior, external; outer most; outward, outlying, outside, outdoor; round about &c. 227; extramural; extralimitary[obs3], extramundane. superficial, skin-deep; frontal, discoid. extraregarding[obs3]; excentric[obs3], eccentric; outstanding; extrinsic &c. 6; ecdemic[Med], exomorphic[obs3]. Adv. externally &c. adj.; out, with out, over, outwards, ab extra, out of doors; extra muros[Lat]. in the open air; sub ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... and grotesque. Yet he is in the list of wonderful men. Others thought and he was led to fancy some resemblance in his feature and person to Edmund Burke, which the portrait of Mr. Burke might actually suggest; but this resemblance to the great English Commoner was but skin-deep, with little hint of the deep sea line that fathomed every question, or the impassioned imagination which cast the light of flame on every measure, and kindled with magnetic sympathy, against the French Revolution and for American privilege, now one ...
— Senatorial Character - A Sermon in West Church, Boston, Sunday, 15th of March, - After the Decease of Charles Sumner. • C. A. Bartol
... to come back here," said one, "and it won't be long before some Honeycutt will give him away. This peace business ain't skin-deep and a five-dollar bill will do the trick for us and I'll find the right man in ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... possibility of doubting my wife's word; but I never knew genuine Kalydor, such as I use for my own complexion, to smell so much like cherry brandy. I was about to express my fears that the lotion would injure her skin, when an accident occurred which threatened more than a skin-deep injury. Our Jehu had carelessly driven over a heap of gravel and fairly capsized the coach, with the wheels in the air and our heels where our heads should have been. What became of my wits I cannot imagine; they have always had a perverse trick of deserting me just when they ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... love-madness came upon me again, and that thin veneering wherewith the Christian centuries have so painfully overlaid the natural man in us was cracked and riven, and the barbarian which lies but skin-deep underneath bestirred himself and winked and blinked himself awake in giant might, as did the primal man when he rose up to look about ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... quickly Climate which is rather worse now than before the scientists Content: not wanting that we can get Excuse is found for nearly every moral delinquency Frivolous old woman fighting to keep the skin-deep beauty Granted that woman is the superior being Held to strict responsibility for her attractiveness History is strewn with the wreck of popular delusions Hot arguments are usually the bane of conversation Idleness seems to be the last accomplishment of civilization ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Charles Dudley Warner • Charles Dudley Warner
... be forgotten, presumably extends to mind as well as to body. It is not merely skin-deep. Contrast the stoical Red Indian with the vivacious Negro; or the phlegmatic Dutchman with the passionate Italian. True, you say, but what about the influence of their various climates, or again of their different ideals of behaviour? Quite so. It ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... mother of Paul Marvell. She was an inherent part of his life; the inner disruption had not resulted in any outward upheaval. And with the sense of inevitableness there came a sudden wave of pity. Poor Undine! She was what the gods had made her—a creature of skin-deep reactions, a mote in the beam of pleasure. He had no desire to "preach down" such heart as she had—he felt only a stronger wish to reach it, teach it, move it to something of the pity that filled his own. They were fellow-victims ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... in the early 'Forties a picture appeared in the Almanac for 1845 in which such an employer was represented by Leech as a Jew of aldermanic proportions, rich and bloated in appearance and of monstrous ostentation and vulgarity. Yet Punch's hatred was really only skin-deep, or, at least, was directed against manners rather than against men; and this fact, curiously enough, gave rise to one of those misunderstandings of which the paper has from time to time been the ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... wounds, and went home to see their families. Little Darby never went; he sent his mother his pay, and wrote to her, but he did not even apply for a furlough, and he had never been touched except for a couple of flesh wounds which were barely skin-deep. When he heard from his mother she was always cheerful; and as he knew Vashti had never even visited her, there was no other reason for his going home. It was in the late part of the third campaign of the war that he began to ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... She wore sweeping draperies, mauve and green. There was about her the romantic air of High Street, Kensington. She was wantonly aesthetic; but she was an excellent creature, kind and good natured; and her affectations were but skin-deep. There was a knock at the door, and they all gave a shout of exultation. Miss Chalice rose and opened. She took the leg of mutton and held it high above her, as though it were the head of John the Baptist on a platter; and, the cigarette still ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... Sir Hubert, of Norman kin, And a maiden, his only daughter dear— The Ladye Tomasine, famed around For beauty as well as for courtesie, Wherever might sensible heads be found, Or ears to listen, or eyes to see. Nor merely skin-deep was she fair: She had a spirit both true and leal, As all about the Castle of Weir Were many to know, and many to tell. Right well she knew what it was to feel Grim poverty in declining day, With a purse to ope, and a hand to deal, And tears to bless what she gave away; Yet she was blithe and she ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... transparent candor; she gazes long and calmly in my face, as if her eye loved to dwell on me, gazes with the eye of a gazelle or a young hare, and the baby lips below outlie the hoariest male fox in the Old Jewry. But, to complete the delusion, all my sweethearts and wives are romantic and poetical skin-deep—or they would not attract me—and all turn out vulgar to the core. By their lovers alone can you ever know them. By the men they can't love, and the men they do love, you find these creatures that imitate sentiment so divinely ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade |
