Beauty is only skin deep

Physical beauty is no guarantee of good character, temperament, etc. Cf. [a 1613 T. Overbury Wife (1614) B8^V] All the carnall beautie of my wife, Is but skinne-deep.

Beauty's but skin-deepe.
[1616 J. Davies Select Second Husband B3]

The less favoured part of the sex say, that ‘beauty is but skin deep’‥but it is very agreeable though, for all that.
[1829 Cobbett Advice to Young Men iii. cxxix.]

Mother used to say that beauty was only skin deep, but I never before realized that bones could be so fearfully repulsive.
[1882 E. M. Ingraham Bond & Free xiii.]

Beauty is only skin-deep, but it's only the skin you see.
[1978 A. Price '44 Vintage xix.]

Related to: beauty

Bibliography of major proverb collections and works cited from modern editions is available here.

External attractiveness has no relation to goodness or essential quality. This maxim was first stated by Sir Thomas Overbury in his poem "A Wife" (1613): "All the carnall beauty of my wife is but skin-deep."