Beauty without expression tires. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
Expression is the mystery of beauty. [ Bulwer-Lytton ]
Great thoughts ensure musical expression. [ Emerson ]
Expression is the dress of thought, and
Appears more decent as more suitable;
A vile conceit in pompous words expressed,
Is like a clown in regal purple dressed. [ Pope ]
My mother,
is an expression of music and melody. [ Mme. Clairon ]
Philosophy is the rational expression of genius. [ Lamartine ]
Sculpture, the tongue on the balance of expression. [ Quoted by Emerson ]
It is simply expression that gives reality to things. [ Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Grey ]
Her eye (I am very fond of handsome eyes).
Was large and dark, suppressing half its fire
Until she spoke, then through its soft disguise
Flashed an expression more of pride than ire,
And love than either; and there would arise,
A something in them which was not desire,
But would have been, perhaps, but for the soul,
Which struggled through and chastened down the whole. [ Byron ]
There is as much expression in the feet as in the hands. [ Chamfort ]
A single profane expression betrays a man's low breeding. [ Joseph Cook ]
There's a charm in delivery, a magical art,
That thrills like a kiss from the lip to the heart;
It is the glance - the expression - the well-chosen word -
By whose magic the depths of the spirit are stirred.
The lip's soft persuasion - its musical tone:
Oh! such were the charms of that eloquent one! [ Mrs. Welby ]
Speech is the vestment of thought and expression its armor. [ Rivarol ]
The law of nature is the strictest expression of necessity. [ Moleschott ]
A sweet expression is the highest type of female loveliness. [ Dr. J. V. C. Smith ]
Politeness is the expression or imitation of social virtues. [ Duclos ]
The man is only half himself, the other half is his expression. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
No expression of politeness but has its root in the moral nature of man. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]
Reserve is the truest expression of respect towards those who are its objects. [ De Quincey ]
Grace has been defined the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul. [ Hazlitt ]
Expression alone can invest beauty with supreme and lasting command over the eye. [ Fuseli ]
Repose demands for its expression the implied capability of its opposite, - energy. [ Ruskin ]
Grief has two forms of expression, laughter and tears; and tears are not the saddest. [ L. Blanc ]
Expression is of more consequence than shape; it will light up features otherwise heavy. [ Sir C. Bell ]
There are faces so fluid with expression that we can hardly find what the mere features are. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
Of every noble work the silent part is best; of all expression, that which cannot be expressed. [ W. W. Story ]
When a thought is too weak to bear a simple expression, it is a sign that it deserves rejection. [ Vauvenargues ]
A beloved face cannot grow ugly, because, not flesh and complexion, but expression, created love. [ Richter ]
Noble art is nothing less than the expression of a great soul; and great souls are not common things. [ John Ruskin ]
Greatness is not a teachable nor gainable thing, but the expression of the mind of a God-made great man. [ Ruskin ]
The more an idea is developed, the more concise becomes its expression: the more a tree is pruned, the better is the fruit. [ Alfred Bougeart ]
Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is the countenance of all science. [ Wordsworth ]
It is an invariable maxim that words which add nothing to the sense or to the clearness must diminish the force of the expression. [ Campbell ]
True delicacy, as true generosity, is more wounded by an offence from itself - if I may be allowed the expression - than to itself. [ Greville ]
Where painting is weakest, - namely, in the expression of the highest moral and spiritual ideas, - there music is sublimely strong. [ Mrs. Stowe ]
Sorrowful words become the sorrowful; angry words suit the passionate; light words a playful expression; serious words suit the grave. [ Horace ]
Propriety of thought and propriety of diction are commonly found together. Obscurity of expression generally springs from confusion of ideas. [ Macaulay ]
Under the assumption of profound esteem, the flatterer wears an outward expression of fidelity, as foreign to his heart as the smile upon the face of the dead. [ E. L. Magoon ]
The excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some useful truth in few words. [ Johnson ]
Love delights in paradoxes. Saddest when it has most reason to be gay, sighs are the signs of its deepest joy, and silence the expression of its yearning tenderness. [ Bovee ]
The flavor of detached thoughts depends upon the conciseness of their expression: for thoughts are grains of sugar, or of salt, that must be melted in a drop of water. [ J. Petit-Senn ]
A lady of genius will give a genteel air to her whole dress by a well-fancied suit of knots, as a judicious writer gives a spirit to a whole sentence by a single expression. [ Gay ]
A maxim is the exact and noble expression of an important and indisputable truth. Sound maxims are the germs of good; strongly imprinted in the memory, they nourish the will. [ Joubert ]
A maxim is the exact and noble expression of an important and unquestionable truth. Good maxims are the germs of all excellence. When firmly fixed on the memory, they nourish the will. [ Joseph Joubert ]
True worth is as inevitably discovered by the facial expression, as its opposite is sure to be clearly represented there. The human face is nature's tablet, the truth is certainly written thereon. [ Lavater ]
A copious manner of expression gives strength and weight to our ideas, which frequently make impression upon the mind, as iron does upon solid bodies, rather by repeated strokes than a single blow. [ Melmoth ]
I do not know what arguments mean in reference to any expression of a thought. I delight in telling what I think; but if you ask me how I dare say so, or why it is so, I am the most helpless of men. [ Emerson ]
People or Persons? The meaning of people is a body of persons regarded collectively, a nation; hence the obvious inaccuracy of the expression, Many people think so.
Persons is preferable in any such sense. [ Pure English, Hackett And Girvin, 1884 ]
A man's love for his native land lies deeper than any logical expression, among those pulses of the heart which vibrate to the sanctities of home, and to the thoughts which leap up from his father's graves. [ Chapin ]
Some eyes threaten like a loaded and levelled pistol, and others are as insulting as hissing or kicking; some have no more expression than blueberries, while others are as deep as a well which you can fall into. [ Emerson ]
Plutarch has a fine expression, with regard to some woman of learning humility, and virtue; - that her ornaments were such as might be purchased without money, and would render any woman's life both glorious and happy. [ Sterne ]
Real beauty ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself an exaggeration and destroys the harmony of any face. The moment one sits down to think one becomes all nose or all forehead, or something horrid. [ Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Grey ]
Flowers have an expression of countenance as much as men or animals. Some seem to smile; some have a sad expression; some are pensive and diffident; others again are plain, honest and upright, like the broad-faced sunflower and hollyhock. [ Henry Ward Beecher ]
I had fifteen years' apprenticeship on the press of New York, writing editorials upon every conceivable subject, often at a few minutes notice, acquiring in this way rapid thought and rapid expression. ... The proof of genius lies in continuity. [ Amelia E. Barr, The Art of Authorship, 1891 ]
Out of the fictitious book I get the expression of the life, of the times, of the manners, of the merriment, of the dress, the pleasure, the laughter, the ridicules of society. The old times live again. Can the heaviest historian do more for me? [ Thackeray ]
Whatever may be the means, or whatever the more immediate end of any kind of art, all of it that is good agrees in this, that it is the expression of one soul talking to another, and is precious according to the greatness of the soul that utters it. [ Ruskin ]
If there is excellence in my composition, set it down, first of all things and last, to the general fact that I have no method. Modes of expression in writing, like modes of expression in speech, are referable purely to feeling, not studied, but of the moment. [ Gen. Lew Wallace, The Art Of Authorship, 1891 ]
The eye is continually influenced by what it cannot detect; nay, it is not going too far to say that it is most influenced by what it detects least. Let the painter define, if he can, the variations of lines on which depend the change of expression in the human countenance. [ Ruskin ]
The instinctive and universal taste of mankind selects flowers for the expression of its finest sympathies, their beauty and their fleetingness serving to make them the most fitting symbols of those delicate sentiments for which language itself seems almost too gross a medium. [ G. S. Hillard ]
I am of opinion that there is nothing so beautiful but that there is something still more beautiful, of which this is the mere image and expression, - a something which can neither be perceived by the eyes, the ears, nor any of the senses; we comprehend it merely in the imagination. [ Cicero ]
As unity demanded for its expression what at first might have seemed its opposite - variety; so repose demands for its expression the implied capability of its opposite - energy. It is the most unfailing test of beauty; nothing can be ignoble that possesses it, nothing right that has it not. [ Ruskin ]
Observe or Say? While the dictionaries authorize the common use of these words, it is in better taste to restrict the employment of observe to its primitive signification; namely, to notice. Hence such an expression as, What did you observe?
is objectionable, and should be, What did you say?
[ Pure English, Hackett And Girvin, 1884 ]
We lose in depth of expression when we go to inferior animals for comparisons with human beauty. Homer calls Juno ox-eyed; and the epithet suits well with the eyes of that goddess, because she may be supposed, with all her beauty, to want a certain humanity. Her large eyes look at you with a royal indifference. [ Leigh Hunt ]
A good author, and one who writes carefully, often discovers that the expression of which he has been in search without being able to discover it, and which he has at last found, is that which was the most simple, the most natural, and which seems as if it ought to have presented itself at once, without effort, to the mind. [ Bruyere ]
Propriety of thought and propriety of diction are commonly found together. Obscurity and affectation are the two great faults of style. Obscurity of expression generally springs from confusion of ideas; and the same wish to dazzle, at any cost, which produces affectation in the manner of a writer, is likely to produce sophistry in his reasoning. [ Macaulay ]
Partially or Partly? The use of the adverb partially for partly, although it has the sanction of Webster, is obviously incorrect. The case in court has been partially heard.
This is a common expression, the intended meaning of which is, that the case has been heard in part, or partly heard. Partially heard, denotes that it was heard in a biased or prejudiced manner. [ Pure English, Hackett And Girvin, 1884 ]
A composition which dazzles at first sight by gaudy epithets, or brilliant turns of expression, or glittering trains of imagery, may fade gradually from the mind, leaving no enduring impression. Words which flow fresh and warm from a full heart, and which are instinct with the life and breath of human feeling, pass into household memories, and partake of the immortality of the affections from which they spring. [ Whipple ]
Over Under. These words have various meanings besides the designation of mere locality, and are often misapplied. The terms under oath,
under hand and seal,
under arms,
under his own signature,
etc., are fully established and authorized forms of expression, which do not concern the relative positions of the persons and things indicated, but are idiomatic. Hence, over his own signature,
is an unjustifiable phrase, despite the fact that the signature is really at the bottom of the instrument signed. [ Pure English, Hackett And Girvin, 1884 ]
Greatness is not a teachable nor gainable thing, but the expression of the mind of a God-made man: teach, or preach, or labour as you will, everlasting difference is set between one man's capacity and another's; and this God-given supremacy is the priceless thing, always just as rare in the world at one time as another.... And nearly the best thing that men can generally do is to set themselves, not to the attainment, but the discovery of this: learning to know gold, when we see it, from iron-glance, and diamond from flint-sand, being for most of us a more profitable employment than trying to make diamonds of our own charcoal. [ John Ruskin ]