handsome is as handsome does

Handsome is as handsome does, for instance - what did that mean?

Handsome is as handsome does, my mother always said.

The old expression is true: Handsome is as handsome does.

But handsome is as handsome does we say.

As the saying goes, 'handsome is as handsome does'.

Handsome is as handsome does, she reminded herself.

"Anna Karenina" may be pretty to look at, but as the old saying goes, handsome is as handsome does.

"Handsome is as handsome does," replied the Scarecrow.

"Handsome is as handsome does," I parroted repressively.

'Handsome is as handsome does,' Hepzibah said.

'Handsome is as handsome does,' said Brother Cadfael somewhat morosely, looking after her.

I've heard Dorothy say that 'handsome is as handsome does,' and I surely perform my duties in a handsome manner.

"Handsome is as handsome does," said Uncle Archibald, who rarely opened his mouth save to emit a proverb.

If handsome is as handsome does, no amount of plastic surgery could make Leighton Meester's mama beautiful.

'Handsome is as handsome does,' snapped Matey, who as an ex-children's nurse had a fund of such sayings.

"Handsome is as handsome does," said grandmother in a tone which implied that, judged by that standard, Jane hadn't the remotest chance of good looks.

"Handsome is as handsome does," quoted the Shaggy Man; "but we must admit that no living scarecrow is handsomer.

She speaks in homilies and clichés, with many capitalizations and extensive exclamation points : "Handsome is as Handsome does!"

You know the saying, 'Handsome is as handsome does'; that applies to men, but 'Beauty is as beauty does', that applies to women.

"But handsome is as handsome does, as we say in the Shire; and I daresay we shall all look much the same after lying for days in hedges and ditches."

But handsome is as handsome does, as the saying has it, and Gargery's loyalty and his willingness to use a cudgel when the occasion demanded more than compensated for his looks.

Ay, but remember that handsome is as handsome does," she said, with grudging admiration--for the girl with her flushed cheeks and shining eyes was something that even dour Janet Gordon could not look upon unmoved.

When at the end of the film, Gustavo is alone watching one of his home movies and marveling at how he and Yolanda used to "turn heads," you are reminded of another old expression, the curt reminder that "handsome is as handsome does."

(On one occasion with magnificent inconsequence, she had remarked after staring at one of Clara's dazzling reports, "Well, handsome is as handsome does" ; this was the only occasion on which she had ever said anything complimentary about Clara's looks.)

Thus, "assertions of fixity," as Jacques Barzun calls them - such as "handsome is as handsome does" and "I can only feel as I feel" - do not qualify, nor does Stanislaw Lee's philosophical "Think before you think."