If you think that to grow a beard is to acquire wisdom, a goat with a fine beard is at once a complete Plato. – Lucian of Samosata, in The Greek Anthology, Volume IV, “Book XI: The Convivial a

A particular face shows determination merely by the turn of the moustache; but the moustache is robbed of all its expression unless it be worn by itself. Accompanied by the other parts of the beard, it loses its originality, it ceases to be a marked characteristic of will or temper. – Charles Blanc, Art in Ornament and Dress, 1875

There is always a period when a man with a beard shaves it off. This period does not last. He returns headlong to his beard. – Jean Cocteau (1889–1963), translated from French