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To judge the appearances we receive of things, we should need a judicatory instrument; to verify this instrument, we should need a demonstration; to rectify this demonstration, we should need an instrument: so here we are arguing in a circle. Seeing the senses cannot decide our dispute, being themselves full of uncertainty, we must have recourse to Reason; there is no reason but must be built upon another reason, so here we are retreating backwards to all eternity.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE, "Apology for Raimund Sebond"
Appearances are often deceiving.
For me, it is as though at every moment the actual world had completely lost its actuality. As though there was nothing there; as though there were no foundations for anything or as though it escaped us. Only one thing, however, is vividly present: the constant tearing of the veil of appearances; the constant destruction of everything in construction. Nothing holds together, everything falls apart.
EUGÈNE IONESCO, Notes and Counter-Notes
- Things are seldom what they seem,
- Skim milk masquerades as cream.
W.S. GILBERT, H.M.S. Pinafore
Appearances to the mind are of four kinds. Things either are what they appear to be; or they neither are, nor appear to be; or they are, and do not appear to be; or they are not, and yet appear to be. Rightly to aim in all these cases is the wise man's task.
Our reason is always disappointed by the inconstancy of appearances.
The impossible could not have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances.
AGATHA CHRISTIE, Murder on the Orient Express
If we don't want to define ourselves by things as superficial as our appearances, we're stuck with the revolting alternative of being judged by our actions.
ELLEN DEGENERES, My Point ... And I Do Have One
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