Strangers see nothing but events and outward appearances; everybody can set a good face on the matter, when they have trembling and terror within
 Michel de Montaigne, The Essays of Michel de Montaigne (1580). copy citation

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Author Michel de Montaigne
Source The Essays of Michel de Montaigne
Topic appearance terror
Date 1580
Language English
Reference
Note Translated by Charles Cotton
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3600/3600-h/3600-h.htm

Context

“but I deny that ‘excellent—admirably done,’ are the terms and final aim of virtue.”—Persius, i. 47.] I care not so much what I am in the opinions of others, as what I am in my own; I would be rich of myself, and not by borrowing. Strangers see nothing but events and outward appearances; everybody can set a good face on the matter, when they have trembling and terror within: they do not see my heart, they see but my countenance. One is right in decrying the hypocrisy that is in war; for what is more easy to an old soldier than to shift in a time of danger, and to counterfeit the brave when he has no more heart than a chicken?” source