Quotes About Blemishes

“It's one thing to say you think someone "hung the moon" but that generally means you are blind and deluded, and then the relationship fails because they say you changed, when really, they never saw you at all ... The real test is if someone sees all your flaws or blemishes or individual differences, and they still think you hung the moon.”

— Kelli Jae Baeli

“Two Ancients' mates in the same family. Maybe you are more like Rhyn than I gave you credit for. Both of you are blemishes on your family.”

— Lizzy Ford

“I am not fair save to the King, Though fair my royal dress, His kingly grace is lavished on My need and worthlessness. My blemishes he will not see But loves the beauty that shall be.”

— Hannah Hurnard

“There are people who might be with you for much of your waking hours for many years, yet when they are gone you find they've left the smallest of marks on you. There are others who will always mark you deeply no matter how little the time they spend with you. Those people leave you with scars and blemishes, with love kisses, with mind-bending alterations of whatever it is inside that makes you who you are.”

— Cari Silverwood

“Over the years Breece had lectured that truth was liquid. That it evaporated in the heat of passion, froze in the cold of fear, and bent itself around virginous, unpurposeful fibs. It could churn and pull you under, drown you in itself, or let you ride upon it like a surf. But truth was always relfective. It showed blackheads and blemishes, fat rolls and sags, scabs and scars. Truth was fearful, angry and dangerous, and that was why so many people did their utmost to avoid it.”

— Brandon Shire

“Pour on me the tears of the heavens
Kiss my cheeks with crystal rain
Wash away my blemishes and jitters
Teach me how to dance in the rain
Listen closely and you may hear
A sweet fading melody with each drop of rain
Pour on me solace and euphoria
Take my hand and dance with me.”

— Larissa Qat

“To analyze or assess a person's failings or deficiencies,' he declared to himself, 'is useless, not because such blemishes are immovable, but because they affect the mass of beholders in diverse ways. Different minds perceive utterly variant figures in the same being.”

— A.E. Coppard

“Now and then, an inch below the water's surface, the muscles of his stomach tightened involuntarily as he recalled another detail. A drop of water on her upper arm. Wet. An embroidered flower, a simple daisy, sewn between the cups of her bra. Her breasts wide apart and small. On her back, a mole half covered by a strap. When she climbed out of the pond a glimpse of the triangular darkness her knickers were supposed to conceal. Wet. He saw it, he made himself see it again. The way her pelvic bones stretched the material clear of the skin, the deep curve of her waist, her startling whiteness. When she reached for her skirt, a carelessly raised foot revealed a patch of soil on each pad of her sweetly diminished toes. Another mole the size of a farthing on her thigh and something purplish on her calf
a strawberry mark, a scar. Not blemishes. Adornments.”

— Ian McEwan

“Mad at me. For Dad, parenting has become just like shooting one of his stupid insurance ads-some makeup to cover the blemishes, a flashy smile, and wham! He's got himself a regular picture-perfect family.”

— Holly Schindler

“Nostalgia is your brain's way of photoshopping the blemishes of your past.”

— Steve Maraboli

“The pits and tangles are more than blemishes distorting the classic shapes of Euclidian geometry. They are often the keys to the essence of a thing”

— James Gleick

“My mother's death supervened, and this was the greatest blow I had experienced in my life. I worshipped her ... I could not resign myself to the loss of a being on whom I counted to make invisible the unavoidable blemishes of my soul.”

— Salvador Dalí

“As they climbed it, the various Healers called out to them, diagnosing odd complaints and suggesting horrible remedies. Ron was seriously affronted when a medieval wizard called out that he clearly had a bad case of spattergroit.
"And what's that supposed to be?" he asked angrily, as the Healer pursued him through six more portraits, shoving the occupants out of the way.
" 'Tis a most grievous affliction of the skin, young master, that will leave you pockmarked and more gruesome even than you are now -"
"Watch who you're calling gruesome!" said Ron, his ears turning red.
"The only remedy is to take the liver of a toad, bind it tight about your throat, stand naked by the full moon in a barrel of eels' eyes -"
"I have not got spattergroit!"
"But the unsightly blemishes upon your visage, young master -"
"They're freckles!" said Ron furiously.”

— J.K. Rowling

“We can be confident in our dealings with the world when what the world sees is the outer person, with all the outer person's defences: the intimacy of a love affair is a different matter altogether. And who might not feel just the slightest bit insecure under the gaze of a lover
a gaze which falls on birthmarks, on blemishes physical and psychological, on our imperfections and impatience, on our human vulnerability?”

— Alexander McCall Smith

“Words are harsh mistresses, to be sure. Like petulant divas, they want only those parts that play to their talents and mask their blemishes, and only when complete companies of players who love their parts are assembled will they sing in harmony. I am your director for this stage production and will employ my best wiles to create a performance both truthful, and beautiful. I know that words are tricksters who show one face to you and another to me, so I am never certain you'll hear in your head what I hear in my head. Since I deliver even this little truth with words, I acknowledge the irony.”

— Dennis Vickers

“We keep our insignificant blemishes so that we can blame them for our larger defects.”

— Stephen Fry

“We seem to live a culture that doesn't want blemishes. The vision of most beautiful models ... airbrushed in order to be seen as perfect, infects our notion of how literature should be written.”

— Alberto Manguel

“These reasonings will furnish us with an adequate definition of a true critic: that he is a discoverer and collector of writers' faults. Which may be farther put beyond dispute by the following demonstration: that whoever will examine the writings in all kinds, wherewith this ancient sect has honoured the world, shall immediately find, from the whole thread and tenor of them, that the ideas of the authors have been altogether conversant and taken up with the faults and blemishes, and oversights, and mistakes of other writers; and let the subject treated on be whatever it will, their imaginations are so entirely possessed and replete with the defects of other pens, that the very quintessence of what is bad does of necessity distil into their own, by which means the whole appears to be nothing else but an abstract of the criticisms themselves have made.”

— Jonathan Swift

“We love a saint, though he has many personal failings. There is no perfection here. In some, rash anger prevails; in some, inconstancy; in some, too much love of the world. A saint in this life is like gold in the ore, much dross of infirmity cleaves to him, yet we love him for the grace that is in him. A saint is like a fair face with a scar: we love the beautiful face of holiness, though there be a scar in it. The best emerald has its blemishes, the brightest stars their twinklings, and the best of the saints have their failings. You that cannot love another because of his infirmities, how would you have God love you?”

— Thomas Watson

“When I did my self-portrait, I left all the pimples out because you always should. Pimples are a temporary condition and they don't have anything to do with what you really look like. Always omit the blemishes-they're not part of the good picture you want.”

— Andy Warhol

“Honesty is about the scars. It's about the blemishes. But it's more than just bragging about failure, which could be a form of ego. It's about truly helping people.”

— James Altucher

“I definitely have a tendency to only see the blemishes of things, and see lots of things about my acting that I don't like.”

— Paul Giamatti

“Propelled by freedom of faith, gender equality and economic justice for all, India will become a modern nation. Minor blemishes cannot cloak the fact that India is becoming such a modern nation: no faith is in danger in our country, and the continuing commitment to gender equality is one of the great narratives of our times.”

— Pranab Mukherjee

“Blemishes are hid by night and every fault forgiven; darkness makes any woman fair.”

— Ovid

“I drew laughing, high-breasted girls aquaplaning without a care in the world, as a result of being amply protected against such national evils as bleeding gums, facial blemishes, unsightly hairs, and faulty or inadequate life insurance. I drew housewives who, until they reached for the right soap flakes, laid themselves wide open to straggly hair, poor posture, unruly children, disaffected husbands, rough (but slender) hands, untidy (but enormous) kitchens.”

— J.D. Salinger

“Not blemishes. Adornments.”

— Ian McEwan

“Life is like the dirt we bury our dreams and fears in. It blemishes the way. As things tend to grow by the rain of our belief or doubts.”

— Anthony Liccione

“X Out has helped me keep up my confidence, and I know it can help anyone who would rather have fun than worry about blemishes. If you want clear, seriously good-looking skin, X Out is for you.”

— Zendaya

“God sees us with the eyes of a Father. He sees our defects, errors and blemishes. But He also sees our value.”

— Max Lucado

“Scripture paints men as they really are, hiding none of their blemishes or barbaric ways. The honesty of scripture is one of the reasons I knew that the Bible would be the place to go to learn what a real man should be and do.”

— Dennis Rainey

“As far as cosmetics are used for adornment in a conscious and creative way, they are not emblems of inauthenticity: it is when they are presented as the real thing, covering unsightly blemishes, disguising a repulsive thing so that it is acceptable to the world that their function is deeply suspect. The women who dare not go out without their false eyelashes are in serious psychic trouble.”

— Germaine Greer

“It is a noble and great thing to cover the blemishes and excuse the failings of a friend; to draw a curtain before his weaknesses and to display his perfections; to bury his shortcomings in silence but to proclaim his virtues on the housetop.”

— Robert South

“Let us candidly admit that there are shameful blemishes on the American past, of which the worst by far is rum. Nevertheless, we have improved man's lot and enriched his civilization with rye, bourbon and the Martini cocktail. In all history has any other nation done so much?”

— Bernard DeVoto

“Bettie Page was number one. I have never known another model who had better knowledge of her body or how to work with it to make it look so good. Her skin was perfect, no blemishes. Perfect nose, beautiful straight teeth, and gleaming, shiny black hair that was always in place, always.”

— Bunny Yeager

“You and I can profit by asking ourselves: What do I see when I look through the lens of my attitude toward myself? Am I more a critic than a friend? Do I look beyond the surface blemishes to find the truly beautiful and unique person that I am? Or do I play the destructive "comparison game"? What verdict does the juror of my mind pass on me: "good at heart" or "guilty on all counts"?”

— John Powell

“I never dreamed of being Shakespeare or Goethe, and I never expected to hold the great mirror of truth up before the world; I dreamed only of being a little pocket mirror, the sort that a woman can carry in her purse; one that reflects small blemishes, and some great beauties, when held close enough to the heart.”

— Peter Altenberg

“It is a gratification to me to know that I am ignorant of art ... Because people who understand art find nothing in pictures but blemishes ...”

— Mark Twain

“Here we write well when we expose frauds and hypocrites. We are great at counting warts and blemishes and weighting feet of clay. In expressing love, we belong among the underdeveloped countries.”

— Saul Bellow

“Oratory, like the drama, abhors lengthiness; like the drama, it must keep doing. It avoids, as frigid, prolonged metaphysical soliloquy. Beauties themselves, if they delay or distract the effect which should be produced on the audience, become blemishes.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

“Self-contempt, however vague, sharpens our eyes for the imperfections of others. We usually strive to reveal in others the blemishes we hide in ourselves.”

— Eric Hoffer

“When we are in competition with ourselves, and match our todays against our yesterdays, we derive encouragement from past misfortunes and blemishes. Moreover, the competition with ourselves leaves unimpaired our benevolence toward our fellow men.”

— Eric Hoffer

“It is impossible for authors to discover beauties in one another's works; they have eyes only for spots and blemishes.”

— Joseph Addison

“But, o, photography! as no art is,Faithful and disappointing! That recordsDull days as dull, and hold-it smiles as frauds,And will not censor blemishes,Like washing-lines, and Hall's-Distemper boards”

— Philip Larkin

“I want to be only a poor friar who prays - if God sees blemishes even in the angels, can you imagine what He sees in me!”

— Pio Of Pietrelcina

“As in the case of painters, who have undertaken to give us a beautiful and graceful figure, which may have some slight blemishes, we do not wish then to pass over such blemishes altogether, nor yet to mark them too prominently. The one would spoil the beauty, and the other destroy the likeness of the picture.”

— Plutarch

“Emulation looks out for merits, that she may exalt herself by a victory; envy spies out blemishes that she may lower another by defeat.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

“The portrait painter ... If he insults his sitters his occupation is gone. Whether he paints the should instead of the features, or the latter with all its natural blemishes, he is as presumptuous as if he shouted, 'What a face. Hide it.' which would never do, although it is analogous to what landscape painters are doing every day.”

— Walter J. Phillips

“If your heart acquires strength, you will be able to remove blemishes from others without thinking evil of them.”

— Mahatma Gandhi

“The Constitution admittedly has a few defects and blemishes, but it still seems a hell of a lot better than the system we have now.”

— Robert Anton Wilson

“That's exactly the way parents develop positive, successful kids. Don't look for the flaws, warts, and blemishes. Look for the gold, not for the dirt; the good, not the bad. Look for the positive aspects of life. Like everything else, the more good qualities we look for in our children, the more good qualities we are going to find.”

— Zig Ziglar