Human face

“ The searching face, the eloquent, strange face—
That with a sightless beauty looked at him
And with a speechless promise uttered words
That were not the world's words, or any kind
That he had known before. What was it, then?
What was it held him—fascinated him?
Why should he not be human? ”

“ The human face is the masterpiece of God.
The eyes reveal the soul, the mouth the flesh, the chin stands for purpose, the nose means will. But over and behind all is that fleeting Something we call "expression." ”

“ The expression of the face is all human, but wrought to the very limit of celestial enthusiasm. The wonderful richness of the coloring, the exquisite ripe fulness of the limbs, the passionate devotion of the kindling features, combine to make it the faultless ideal of a perfect human being in youth. ”

“ The difference just eyes can make! His face is the face of the drilled, of the perfect unthinking machine, the correct and well-born Oberleutnant; and out of it look the eyes of a human being who knows, or will know I'm certain before life has done with him, what exultations are, and agonies, and love, and man's unconquerable mind. ”

“ What is true of the natural world is also true of man. Consider the variations of the human face. Reflecting upon the limited number of features, one is amazed to think that such an infinite combination of facial forms and expressions can be created. ”

“ CRUELTY has a human heart
⁠And Jealousy a human face;
Terror the human form divine,
And Secrecy the human dress.
The human dress is forged iron,
The human form a fiery forge,
The human face a furnace seal'd,
The human heart its hungry gorge. ”

“ If the face of human learning be so beautiful, as to make sensual pleasures appear base and brutish; how beautiful then is the face of God? When we meet with some choice book, how could we read it day and night, almost forgetful of meat, drink, or sleep? ”

“ You know how quickly a joke, something funny, is expressed in the facial muscles; how quickly they respond to any mental state-disappointment, bad news, discouragement, sorrow, anger. The muscles of the face, its varying expressions, change with the thought. In other words, the facial expression indicates the condition of a man’s mind. By this you can tell whether your prospect is in a good or a bad humor, whether he is a human icicle, cold, unfeeling, or a human magnet, tender, kind, sympathetic. ”

“ So that to form a finished human beauty, and to give it its full influence, the face must be expressive of such gentle and amiable qualities, as correspond with the softness, smoothness, and delicacy of the outward form. ”

“ Painters and illustrators 72give the most minute study to facial expression, and suggest various sentiments by bits of light and shade so subtle that the uninitiated cannot see what or where they are, although their effect is everything as regards the depiction of personality. It is the failure to reproduce them that makes the emptiness of nearly all copies of famous painting or sculpture that represents the face. ”

“ Depth of character, or a melancholy expression on a woman's face would freeze his senses, which would, however, immediately melt at the sight of healthy, abundant, rosy human flesh. ”

“ In the first place, the alteration of the abnormal color, so far as the general aspect of the face is concerned, has an effect the very reverse of that which was intended. Every constituent part of man tends to make the human machine one harmonious whole. The figure, the stature, the skin, the hair, the gait, &c. ”

“ If you do recall the features, and say that an eye is blue, a chin sharp, a nose short, or a cheek sunken, I fancy that you do not succeed well in giving the impression of the person,—not so well as when you interpret at once to the heart the essential moral qualities of the face—its humor, gravity, sadness, spirituality. ”

“ If it be true that man's face is the canvas upon which the affections and desires of his mind are depicted as soon as they are formed, the eyes are unquestionably the central point of the picture, and it is in them, as in a looking-glass, that every sentiment that passes across our brain is reflected. ”

“ The face was a face for which some men would die a hundred deaths and dream all beauty in dying, while other men, blind fools, and many women, of the envious sort, would protest it to be not even passable; a face small, thin, clear, and very dark; the chin obstinate; the mouth full, somewhat large, sorrowful, mocking, maddening, unforgettably scarlet; the nose whimsical, dainty; the eyes of a strange green radiance, very large and trustfully wide open, frank as a child's, yet unfathomable; a face to trust, to adore, yet not to understand. ”

“ Walk along a crowded street and watch the different faces of the men and women as they pass by—grey faces, drab faces, white faces, yellow faces, faces sad and cross, and lined and dull, faces by the thousand blank of any expression at all, and then here and there, at rare, rare intervals, a live face that speaks. ”

“ But it was a face, so he told himself, that any man would trust,—a face that would make a man the better for looking at it,—a face which reflected a soul that no environment could make other than pure and spotless. ”

“ Take but half the pains to recover the countenance that nature gave you, that you must have taken to disguise and deform it as you have, and the business will be done. Accustom your eyes to a certain softness, of which they are very capable, and your face to smiles, which become it more than most faces I know. ”

“ I read that a face is strong, gentle; that it is full of patience, of intellect; that it is fine, sweet, noble, beautiful. Have I not the same right to use these words in describing what I feel as you have in describing what you see? They express truly what I feel in the hand. I am seldom conscious of physical qualities, and I do not remember whether the fingers of a hand are short or long, or the skin is moist or dry. No more can you, without conscious effort, recall the details of a face, even when you have seen it many times. ”

“ If either good or bad thoughts come to live in your mind all the time, they will print themselves on your face and change your looks. The good thoughts will make your face beautiful, though your hair may be as straight as an Indian’s, your nose crooked, and your mouth large. On the other hand, though your hair may curl, your skin be as fair as a peach blossom, your features be perfect, yet if you let bad thoughts live in the mind, your face will no longer look lovely to others. ”

“ The face is singular, one that strikes at a first sight and grows upon the observer; a brilliant eager, old face, keen and gentle, with a preponderance of brow and head; clear bird-like eyes, eloquent excitable mouth, with a look of nervous and fluent power; the whole lighted through as it were from behind with a strange and pure kind of smile, touched too with something of an impatient prospective rapture. ”

“ He continued to observe, that what is usually called character in a face, is probably excess in some of its parts, and particularly of those which are under the influence of the mind, the leading passion of which marks some feature for its own. A perfectly symmetrical face bears no mark of the influence of either the passions or the understanding, and reminds you of Prometheus’s clay without his fire. ”

“ The face of the man was a mask of weariness of the soul, which kills so vastly more efficiently than weariness of the body. You could see that weariness in the tired frown of the black brows, the narrowing of the dark eyes, the downward tug of the lips. ”

“ I saw these things in a single glance, and then I turned—to find myself face to face with a tallish, thin, active man, with a pale, shaven, ascetic face, dark hair, and astonishingly quick glittering black eyes. ”

“ To our way of thinking, such a face could scarcely be described as beautiful; but how much prejudice there is in our ideas of beauty! I soon came to find these brown faces, gleaming with health and fat, really pleasing. ”

“ The face features a man’s character, his eyes window his soul. There are faces that instantly beckon all our better nature and bind us in loving thrall. There are other faces that repel us as the snake repels. ”

“ Transparent as a child, his face is the index of his mood. There—and indeed not only there, but in his whole figure, which unconsciously obeys the trend of his mind—his thoughts are inevitably reflected. ”

“ Are you growing more attractive as you advance in life? Is your eye softer and deeper, is your mouth kinder, your expression more sympathetic, or are you screwing up your face in tense knots of worry? Are your eyes growing hopeless and dull, is your mouth drooping at the corners, and becoming a set thin line in the centre, and is your skin dry, and sallow, and parched? ”

“ We have often seen faces whose usually coarse and heavy lineaments were harmonized at times into beauty by the light that rises from the soul into the eyes. The intention Nature had with regard to the face and its wearer, usually eclipsed beneath bad habits or a bad education, is then disclosed, and we see what hopes Death has in store for that soul. ”

“ Thy face is the physiognomy of an extraordinary man, who thinks deeply, who holds fast to whatever he undertakes, works, flies, triumphs, finds few men in whom he will confide, but many who will rely on him.
“Ah! if a common mortal had such a brow, such a mouth, such a nose, or even such hair, what would become of physiognomy?
“Perhaps there is not a man existing whom thy countenance would not by turns attract and repel. ”

“ However, although no dumb trait, considered in an isolated point of view, can be an expression of the mind, a face composed entirely of these kinds of features can be characterized in its entireness by precisely the same reason as a face which is speaking only as an expression of sensuous nature can be nevertheless characteristic. ”

“ Equally true is it that the face should be free from that incessant smiling which overspreads the countenances of so many. The face should possess neither one of these expressions, but present a set, firm appearance, conveying no idea of the thoughts of the mind. Outward causes are exceptions to the changes of facial expressions. ”

“ Without pretension to actual beauty or any kind of perfection, the face was one likely to attract and then to charm; gentleness, thoughtfulness, intellectual power, might be read in those fair features, as well as an almost infantine candor and innocence, and the subtle and all too-transient bloom of extreme youth. ”

“ Faces.—Several of these denote an invitation to a party or wedding; ugly faces mean disturbances or bad news; pretty faces, pleasure and love; two faces upon one head, looking diverse ways, indicate that you may hear yourself accused of deception and falseness, or that these things may be practised upon you; a bearded face, health and strength, but an indolent nature, which is a source of vexation to those around you. ”

“ It is clearly a passive face rather than an active face, a face across which moods may pass and repass rather than a face grooved and charactered into any one permanent show of relation to the outer world. ”

“ They can judge with astounding correctness from a shadow on one's face, a catch in one's breath, a movement of one's hands, how their words or deeds are affecting us. We cannot conceal our feelings from them. ”

“ Your little face is like a flower in its delicate tints, and your eyes are true and tender and asking so many questions of life,—and sometimes they are veiled and misty, and then they look wise and courageous. ”

“ You can read a man by his facial expression much better than you can by the bumps on his head, because the muscles of the face respond [67] to the passing thought and reflect the idea, the emotion, every phase of the mental state. ”

“ They have finely-chiselled features, deep, rather large and expressive eyes, slightly bronzed complexions, and in every curious look, gaze, or expression, there is an easy, modest dignity, such as I have never before seen, even among the rarest few. In every face there is a deep and real joy ”

“ This attention to the particulars which distinguish all the different faces, persons, and characters, the one from the other, gives his pictures quite the verity and unaffected dignity of nature, which stamp the distinguishing differences betwixt one man’s face and body and another’s. ”

“ While there is doubtless something admirable in the motionless purity of forms, in proportion, and in the perfect adaptation of the organs to their functions which constitute plastic beauty, supreme and really poetic beauty, nevertheless, lies pre-eminently in expression and movement. To the modern age, the face is still the most beautiful part of the man, and that is constantly tending, by the development of the nervous system, of intelligence and morality, to become more expressive. ”

“ That in these profiles exists one cause of beauty is proved by the character of the opposite line; for the greater the inflection of the nose, the less beautiful is the face; and if, when seen sidewise, it presents a bad profile, it is useless to look for beauty in any other view. ”

“ A person accustomed to watch the faces of those who were ailing in body or mind, and to search in every line and tint for some underlying source of disorder, could hardly help analyzing the impression such a face produced upon him. ”

“ Of all parts of the body, the face is most considered and regarded, as is natural from its being the chief seat of expression and the source of the voice. It is also the chief seat of beauty and of ugliness, and throughout the world is the most ornamented. ”

“ It was the face of the man that held his gaze—a bronzed and high-boned face, full of weather-wrinkles like his own, whose dark eyes gave him look for look and in their arrogance held a peculiar glassy appearance. ”

“ When the mind is at rest, all the features of the visage are in a state of profound tranquillity. Their proportion, their union, their harmony, seem to mark the sweet serenity, and to give a true information of what passes within. When the soul, however, is agitated, the human visage becomes a living picture, where the passions are expressed with as much delicacy as energy ”

“ No; in that noble face, pale from illness or from sadness, with the traces of sorrow upon it, and the marks of long vigils by the bedside of her father—in that refined face, whose expression spoke only of elevation of soul, and exhibited the perfect type of manly beauty, there was certainly nothing that could excite repugnance, but every thing that might inspire confidence. ”