Top 100 What They Seem Quotes
#1. Things aren't always what they seem
You're only seeing part of me
There's more than you could ever know
Behind the scenes.
Francesca Battistelli
#2. Things are not quite what they seem always. Don't start me on class, otherwise you'll get a four-hour lecture.
Michael Caine
#3. It is little men know of women; their smiles and their tears alike are seldom what they seem.
Amelia Barr
#4. Things aren't always what they seem, are they?
N.E. Bode
#5. Everyone had a dirty, little secret that is never spoken out loud to anyone. Which is another way of saying people are never what they seem.
Anonymous
#6. Women are never what they seem to be. There is the woman you see and there is the woman who is hidden. Buy the gift for the woman who is hidden.
Erma Bombeck
#7. Reality rebounds, and things turn out the opposite of what they seem and what people expect. Strength becomes weakness; love becomes pornography; pleasure becomes boredom; and so on.
Os Guinness
#8. Things are not always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many; the intelligence of a few perceives what has been carefully hidden.
Phaedrus
#9. I'll say this, Arik: the old man's warning proved to be true - things are not always what they seem. She was no young lady -"
"If it's the demon you speak of," interjected Rith, as she stepped back into the ruin, Lyssa following after, "she was not even a toothless old hag.
Dennis L. McKiernan
#10. What is there," Owain wondered aloud, to the sky above him and the soil below, "persuades this man still that my words do not mean what they seem to mean in sane men's ears?
Edith Pargeter
#11. The seeming imperfections of Earth, the hazards and inequalities of life, the cruelty, harshness and apparent indifference to suffering and affliction are not what they seem; as it is Earth is perfect for its purpose. It is ignorance of that purpose which makes it appear imperfect.
Kolbrin BIble
#12. There is only one plot - things are not what they seem.
Jim Thompson
#14. We all make assumptions
every day. Some more important than others. Some more damaging
than others. And things, very often, are not at all what they seem.
B.B. Shepherd
#15. They please, are pleas'd, they give to get esteem Till, seeming blest, they grow to what they seem.
Oliver Goldsmith
#16. Masks are what they seem to be; not so the faces beneath them.
Mason Cooley
#17. There are some as are what they are. And there are some as aren't what they seem to be. And there are some as only seem to be what they seem to be.
Neil Gaiman
#18. It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem.
Douglas Adams
#19. The characters that aren't what they seem to be or women who are stronger than people give them credit for or characters you underestimate, I always think are really interesting because there are so many possibilities with them.
Valorie Curry
#20. But one needs to bear in mind that things are not always what they seem and, contrary to the dead stillness of a photograph, reality is in a state of perpetual flux.
Audur Ava Olafsdottir
#21. Names are not always what they seem.
Mark Twain
#22. Names are not always what they seem. The common Welsh name Bzjxxllwcp is pronounced Jackson.
Mark Twain
#23. Who keeps on loving you when you've been lying, saying things that ain't what they seem? God does, but I don't. God will, but I won't.
Lyle Lovett
#24. It often happens that things are other than what they seem, and you can get yourself into trouble by jumping to conclusions.
Paul Auster
#25. If you pay attention to the movies they will tell you what people desire and fear. Movies are hardly ever about what they seem to be about. Look at a movie that a lot of people love, and you will find something profound, no matter how silly the film may be.
Roger Ebert
#26. If things are not what they seem - and we are forever reminded that this is the case - then it must also be observed that enough of us ignore this truth to keep the world from collapsing.
Thomas Ligotti
#27. Those who are content with what they are, have the less concern about what they seem.
George MacDonald
#28. You have no assurance that they are doing wrong at all, for the motives of man's actions are not always what they seem. There is generally much to learn before any judgement can be pronounced with certainty on another's doings.
Marcus Aurelius
#29. Also not being afraid to stand up for what you believe in while taking into account that you could very well be wrong, or maybe there's another way to look at it- that things are not what they seem to be, and that everything is subjective.
Surya Das
#30. Dreams and visions are not always what they seem to be," Kalidess said quietly.
Tyrean Martinson
#31. Things are no longer what they seem to be. My telephones are haunted, and animals whisper at me from unseen places.
Hunter S. Thompson
#32. Be skilled at seeing people for what they are, not for what they seem.
Orson Scott Card
#33. Coward dogs most spend their mouths when what they seem to threaten runs far before them.
William Shakespeare
#34. I cannot spare the luxury of believing that all things beautiful are what they seem.
Fitz-Greene Halleck
#35. Like her friend and admirer Clarice Lispector, Hilda Hilst was a passionate explorer of the sacred and the profane, the pure and the obscene, and shows, in this discomfiting, hypnotic work, just how rarely those categories are what they seem. The translation is excellent - what a rare relief.
Benjamin Moser
#36. Tell me not in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou are, to dust thou returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
#37. When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses--not zebras.' In other words, most things are exactly what they seem, and the simplest answer is usually the right one.
Judy Melinek
#39. Men should be what they seem; Or those that be not, would they might seem none!.
William Shakespeare
#40. Things are NEVER what they seem, Pa, I thought. I used to think they were, but I was wrong or stupid or blind or something. Old folks are forever complaining about their failing eyesight, but I think your vision gets better as you get older. Mine surely was.
Jennifer Donnelly
#41. Where magic is the essence of existence and those who wield it, rarely what they seem
Kathryn Royce-Martin
#42. The only thing that has kept the race of men from the mad extremes of the convent and the pirate-galley, the night-club and the lethal chamber, has been mysticism - the belief that logic is misleading, and that things are not what they seem.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#43. I read so much about men who aren't what they seem, and particularly stories written by women who found out their husbands had a slew of secrets they knew nothing about.
Jane Green
#44. Sometimes things aren't what they seem and even a Seer can't see what's commin'.
Kami Garcia
#45. The life of a coquette is one constant lie; and the only rule by which you can form any correct judgment of them is that they are never what they seem.
Henry Fielding
#46. Be careful ... not all are what they seem. Some people pretend to be the beach, but they're actually quicksand.
Steve Maraboli
#47. Things are often exactly what they seem---horrifying or distasteful, even repugnant and disgusting.
Norman Giddan
#48. The great things of life are what they seem to be, and for that reason, strange as it may sound to you, are often difficult to interpret. But the little things of life are symbols. We receive our bitter lessons most easily through them.
Oscar Wilde
#50. Events That Haunt The Mind And Scar It With Nightmares Are Never What They Seem ...
P.W. Creighton
#51. They validate perceptions that need validating, especially in adolescence
ie, under the bland, forced optimism of American life terrible forces are at work, things are not what they seem, and if you feel lonely, persecuted, a misfit, and in terror, you aren't crazy. You're right.
Joanna Russ
#52. People who personify the system are indeed well known for not being what they seem to be; they have achieved greatness by embracing a level of reality lower than that of the most insignificant individual life- and everyone knows it.
Guy Debord
#53. Possessions and concessions are not often what they seem, they drag you down and load you down in disguise of security.
Neil Young
#54. Humans are not defined by their limitations, but by the intentions that I have for them; not by what they seem to be, but by everything it means to be created in my image.
Wm. Paul Young
#55. This is pretty obvious, but until things happen, they haven't happened. And often things aren't what they seem.
Haruki Murakami
#56. Look! Don't be deceived by appearances - men and things are not what they seem. All who are not on the rock are in the sea!
William Booth
#57. Stay open minded. Things aren't always what they seem to be.
Scottie Waves
#58. Things aren't ever what they seem to be when you first look at them. What's important is that you keep your mind wide open and try to understand what's going on from a lot of different angles.
Christopher Paul Curtis
#59. Things do not pass for what they are, but for what they seem. Most things are judged by their jackets.
Baltasar Gracian
#60. Sometimes things are just what they seem to be and that's all there is to it.
Charles Bukowski
#61. In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears. Things are not only what they are. They are, in very important respects, what they seem to be.
Hubert H. Humphrey
#62. On the other side, is a substantial, more materialism, everything is real long to the extent we can see or measure it, and things are as real as I think they. That's way too materialistic or substantialist, because things are not really what they seem to be.
Surya Das
#63. But what if things aren't what they seem? As you said, there is no truth in the Digital Sea." "Eventually we must cling to some reality," Mekena said. "Even if we are not sure it is the most real. One can wait for a whole lifetime for the reality we want and miss the one we have in our hands.
Thomas K. Carpenter
#65. If they [the dead] should speak, it would be found that in matters of opinion no departed person was exactly what he had passed for in life. They would realise, deep down, that they, and whole nations along with them, are not really what they seem to be-and never can be.
Mark Twain
#66. It doesn't matter what you do, if you love what you do, then you don't sweat the little things. You just don't pay attention to them. Then when the big things come along, they're never as big as what they seem to somebody who doesn't have a passion for it and doesn't really love it.
Kyle Petty
#69. Not all accidents are what they seem. Victims do no even know why they have been chosen.
Brian Herbert
#70. I think waking up in the middle of the night and seeing stuff in the dark and thinking it is something scary or demonic. When you first wake up and you see things and you're eyes aren't open and things aren't what they seem. That happened to me like three weeks ago!
Daniel Jacobs
#71. It's stranger than every strangeness
And the dreams of all the poets
And the thoughts of all the philosophers,
That things are really what they seem to be
And there's nothing to understand.
Alberto Caeiro
#72. In short, not only are things not what they seem, they are not even what they are called!
Francisco De Quevedo
#73. Things are not at all what they seem to be: oh no, not at all.
Kate DiCamillo
#74. I do not know what the Democratic Party spent, in toto, on the 2004 election, but what they seem to have gotten for it is Barack Obama. Let us savor.
Peggy Noonan
#76. Lots of things are more than what they seem in a purely physical sense.
Jim Butcher
#77. Make me howl, make me scream,
Things are never what they seem.
Lay me out, end the pain,
Now I'll never be the same.
Deep inside, there I cry,
Yet you still just pass me by.
Can't you see, this is me,
And I'm Howling! I'm Howling! I'm Howling!
Lisa Kessler
#78. With pantheism ... the deity is associated with the order of nature or the universe itself ... when modern scientists such as Einstein and Stephen Hawking mention 'God' in their writing, this is what they seem to mean: that God is Nature.
Victor J. Stenger
#79. Nice girls aren't always what they seem.
Taylor Cole
#80. What are they going to do about it?"
"So far? Get drunk. Yell at each other or at us. Design theoretical judicial systems. Most of them seem to want the whole thing to just go away sot hey can get on with their research."
Murtry chuckled. "God bless the eggheads.
James S.A. Corey
#81. Religions are strange. They seem to be caught in some dream which they won't give up and trying to convince others of the truth of their dream, when in fact each person is having their own dream. Take what you need from the religions and just leave the rest, and be all right with that.
Art Hochberg
#82. Some of these rich folks seem to think that everything belongs to them and they'll even get to take it with them when they die. But you know what? You don't ever see a hearse pulling a U Haul.
Jim Hightower
#83. Anything that is within someone else's reach is also within yours. Set your goals no matter how impossible they may seem. Then focus on what is between you and that goal. And then, simply take out the obstacles as they come.
Liz Murray
#84. From where you sit, it may seem that certain people should know better. People are who they are and do what they do whether or not you like it or agree with them. We each have different lessons to learn. We each take a different path to our lessons.
Iyanla Vanzant
#85. I know people who prepare their roles in such a way that they technically look ahead and memorize their gestures, and then they stick to it. Those that are technically proficient enough can make it seem natural, but they do that and don't really take in what other people are doing.
Viggo Mortensen
#86. And what's so bad about your being deprived of that? ... All things seem unbearable to people who have become spoilt, who have become soft through a life of luxury, ailing more in the mind than they ever are in the body.
Seneca.
#87. Compared to their sense of smell, dogs seem to pay a lot less attention to their sense of taste. Apparently they believe that if something fits into their mouths, then it is food, no matter what it tastes like.
Stanley Coren
#88. I don't seem to have ever had a plan, but I have always been quite good at walking through doors when they are opened. I am never any good at anticipating what will happen next, but I always go for it when it does.
Julian Fellowes
#89. What I do is spend too much time thinking. Most of the time I just walk around annoyed. Would I describe myself as relatively happy, I suppose, but society gets to me. And the people that have mastered life seem to not care, and then they die, and then the grenade goes off.
Neill Blomkamp
#90. All children are beautiful: the thing they do with their eyes that seems so dazzling when they take you all in, or seem to take you all in; it's like being looked at by an alien, or a cat - who knows what they see?
Anne Enright
#91. The truth is, what you do matters. What you do today matters. What you do every day matters. Successful people just do the things that seem to make no difference in the act of doing them and they do them over and over and over until the compound effect kicks in.
Jeff Olson
#92. What is happening to the daughters of the yam? Seem like they just don't know how to draw up the powers from the deep like before. Not full sunned and sweet anymore.
Toni Cade Bambara
#93. This book is about physics and its about physics and its relationship with mathematics and how they seem to be intimately related and to what extent can you explore this relationship and trust it.
Roger Penrose
#94. Some people, well, most people just seem to show up on your life with no clear purpose. Have you noticed that? They're like dust mites. You know they're there, you just don't know what to do about them.
Polly Horvath
#95. My favorite animal in the park is the grizzly, icnonic, graceful, and with eyes that seem to know, and what they know is sad.
Danielle Rohr
#96. Sometimes," says a fellow depressive, "I wish I was in a full body cast, with every bone in my body broken. That's how I feel anyway. Then, maybe, people would stop minimising my illness because they can actually see what's wrong with me. They seem to need physical evidence.
Sally Brampton
#97. What's awful about being famous and being an actress is when people come up to you and touch you. That's scary, and they just seem to think it's okay to do it, like you're public property.
Winona Ryder
#98. I want people to do what they want to do because when they feel comfortable it seems to translate better on screen. It is when you put people in a straitjacket that it doesn't seem to translate very well at all. The individuals I work with are usually people I know.
Steve McQueen
#99. If you don't recount your family history, it will be lost. Honor your own stories and tell them too. The tales may not seem very important, but they are what binds families and makes each of us who we are.
Madeleine L'Engle
#100. Friends in the Midwest often ask me what it's like to raise a family in Los Angeles. I say it's just like where they are, but warmer and with more traffic. I also tell them people here seem a bit more tolerant of those who are different.
Steven Levitan
