Sight before hearsay. [ Danish Proverb ]
Out of sight out of mind. [ Proverb ]
At whose sight all the stars
Hide their diminished heads. [ Milton ]
But O, she dances such a way!
No sun upon an Easter-day,
Is half so fine a sight. [ Sir John Suckling ]
Nothing sharpens sight like envy. [ Proverb ]
Say, what other metre is it
Than the meeting of the eyes?
Nature poureth into nature
Through the channels of that feature
Riding on the ray of sight,
Fleeter far than whirlwinds go.
Or for service, or delight,
Hearts to hearts their meaning show. [ Emerson ]
Though lost to sight, to memory dear
Thou ever wilt remain. [ George Linley: Song ]
'Tis sweet, as year by year we lose
Friends out of sight, in faith to muse
How grows in Paradise our store. [ Keble ]
That hideous sight - a naked human heart. [ Young ]
Oh, say! what is that thing called light,
Which I must never enjoy?
What are the blessings of the sight?
Oh, tell your poor blind boy! [ Colley Cibber ]
O loss of sight, of thee I most complain!
Blind among enemies, O worse than chains.
Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age! [ Milton ]
Live for today! tomorrow's light,
Tomorrow's cares shall bring to sight;
Go sleep, like closing flowers, at night,
And Heaven thy morn will bless. [ Keble ]
Though inland far we be,
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither. [ Wordsworth ]
Women were made to give our eyes delight;
A female sloven is an odious sight. [ Young ]
Graceful to sight and elegant to thought. [ Young ]
Sweet sleep be with us, one and all!
And if upon its stillness fall
The visions of a busy brain.
We'll have our pleasure over again.
To warm the heart, to charm the sight,
Gay dreams to all! good night, good night. [ Joanna Baillie ]
Ye realms, yet unrevealed to human sight,
Ye gods who rule the regions of the night.
Ye gliding ghosts permit me to relate
The mystic wonders of your silent state. [ Dryden ]
The sight of a man hath the force of a lion. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Carcasses bleed at the sight of the murderer. [ Burton ]
We credit most our sight; one eye doth please
Our trust far more than ten ear witnesses. [ Herrick ]
Perfect light
Would dazzle, not illuminate, the sight;
From earth it is enough to glimpse at heaven. [ Lord Houghton ]
At the sight of a man we too say to ourselves,
Let us be men. [ Amiel ]
These eyes tho' clear
To outward view of blemish or of spot.
Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot.
Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear
Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year.
Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not
Against Heaven's hand or will, nor have a jot
Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer
Right onward. [ Milton ]
Who doth not feel, until his failing sight
Faints into dimness with its own delight,
His changing cheek, his sinking heart confess.
The might - the majesty of Loveliness? [ Byron ]
Malice hath a sharp sight and a strong memory. [ Proverb ]
Love, free as air, at sight of human ties,
Spreads his light wings, and in a moment flies. [ Pope ]
A blaze first pleases and then tires the sight. [ Dr. Johnson ]
We understood
Her by her sight; her pure and eloquent blood
Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought.
That one might almost say her body thought. [ Donne ]
The wise and active conquer difficulties,
By daring to attempt them. Sloth and folly
Shiver and shrink at sight of toil and hazards,
And make the impossibility they fear. [ Rowe ]
None ever loved, but at first sight they loved. [ George Chapman ]
Be it a weakness, it deserves some praise,
We love the play-place of our early days.
The scene is touching, and the heart is stone.
That feels not at that sight, and feels at none. [ Cowper ]
Long while I sought to what I might compare
Those powerful eyes, which light my dark spirit;
Yet found I nought on earth, to which I dare
Resemble the image of their goodly light.
Not to the sun, for they do shine by night;
Nor to the moon, for they are changed never;
Nor to the stars, for they have purer sight;
Nor to the fire, for they consume not ever;
Nor to the lightning, for they still persevere;
Nor to the diamond, for they are more tender;
Nor unto crystal, for nought may they sever;
Nor unto glass, such baseness might offend her;
Then to the Maker's self the likest be;
Whose light doth lighten all that here we see. [ Spenser ]
Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul. [ Pope ]
Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll;
Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul. [ Pope ]
Oh! liberty, thou goddess, heavenly bright.
Profuse of bliss, and pregnant with delight!
Eternal pleasures in thy presence reign.
And smiling plenty, leads thy wanton train;
Eased of her load, subjection grows more light
And poverty looks cheerful in the sight;
Thou makest the gloomy face of nature gay,
Giv'st beauty to the sun, and pleasure to the day. [ Addison ]
It is a most sad sight to see an old man in misery. [ Proverb ]
As sight is in the eye, so is the mind in the soul! [ Sophocles ]
The keenest of all our senses is the sense of sight. [ Cicero ]
He that woos a maid must come seldom in her sight,
But he that woos a widow, must woo her day and night. [ Proverb ]
Men's actions are not to be judged of at first sight. [ Proverb ]
An infant when it gazes on the light,
A child the moment when it drains the breast,
A devotee when soars the Host in sight,
An Arab with a stranger for a guest,
A sailor when the prize has struck in fight,
A miser filling his most hoarded chest,
Feel rapture; but not such true joy are reaping
As they who watch over what they love while sleeping. [ Byron ]
Distrust is the mother of safety, but must keep out of sight. [ Proverb ]
I dimly guess, from blessings known, of greater out of sight. [ Whittier ]
Thou art figured blind, and yet we borrow our best sight from thee. [ Massinger ]
Half light, half shade, she stood a sight to make an old man young. [ Tennyson ]
Love took up the harp of life, and smote on all the chords with might;
Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music out of sight. [ Alfred Tennyson ]
Mine eyes he closed, but open left the cell of Fancy, my immortal sight. [ Milton ]
Great affectation and great absence of it are at first sight very similar. [ Whately ]
Still it is a fine sight to see a man who has never changed his principles. [ Jules Favre ]
Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their objects than love. [ George Eliot ]
Babylon in all its desolation is a sight not so awful as that of the human mind in ruins. [ Scorpe Davies ]
The little done vanishes from the sight of man, who looks forward to what is still to do. [ Goethe ]
We carry our neighbour's failings in sight, we throw our own crimes over our own shoulders. [ Proverb ]
All beauty does not inspire love. Some please the sight without captivating the affections. [ Cervantes ]
It is better to break off a thousand friendships, than to endure the sight of a single enemy. [ Saadi ]
Still thou knowest that in the ardor of pursuit men lose sight of the goal from which they start. [ Schiller ]
The art of painting does not proceed so much by intelligence as by sight and feeling and invention. [ Hamerton ]
The balls of sight are so formed that one man's eyes are spectacles to another to read his heart with. [ Johnson ]
We do love beauty at first sight; and we do cease to love it, if it is not accompanied by amiable qualities. [ Lydia Maria Child ]
Nothing affords greater pleasure to the members of the family than the cultivation and daily sight of flowers. [ D. D. T. Moore ]
Comedies acted on life's stage, behind the scenes, are much more spirited than those acted in sight of the audience. [ De Finod ]
The sight of a drunkard is a better sermon against that vice than the best that was ever preached upon that subject. [ Saville ]
A beautiful object doth so much attract the sight of all men, that it is in no man's power not to be pleased with it. [ Clarendon ]
Invention is activity of mind, as fire is air in motion; a sharpening of the spiritual sight, to discern hidden aptitudes. [ Tupper ]
It is the secret of the world that all things subsist, and do not die, but only retire a little from sight, and afterwards return again. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
With every anguish of our earthly part the spirit's sight grows clearer; this was meant when Jesus touched the blind man's lids with clay. [ Lowell ]
All papas and mammas have exactly that sort of sight which distinguishes objects at a distance clearly, while they need spectacles to see those under their very noses. [ Ruffini ]
As small letters hurt the sight, so do small matters him that is too much intent upon them; they vex and stir up anger, which begets an evil habit in him in reference to greater affairs. [ Plutarch ]
The business of the dramatist is to keep himself out of sight, and to let nothing appear but his characters. As soon as he attracts notice to his personal feelings, the illusion is broken. [ Macaulay ]
Why was the sight to such a tender ball as the eye confined, so obvious and so easy to be quenched, and not, as feeling, through all parts diffused, that she might look at will through every pore? [ Milton ]
The power of painter or poet to describe rightly what he calls an ideal thing depends upon its being to him not an ideal, but a real thing. No man ever did or ever will work well but either from actual sight or sight of faith. [ Ruskin ]
No good book or good thing of any sort shows its best face at first; nay, the commonest quality in a true work of art, if its excellence have any depth and compass, is that at first sight it occasions a certain disappointment. [ Carlyle ]
Death is the tyrant of the imagination. His reign is in solitude and darkness, in tombs and prisons, over weak hearts and seething brains. He lives, without shape or sound, a phantasm, inaccessible to sight or touch - a ghastly and terrible apprehension. [ Barry Cornwall ]
The eye observes only what the mind, the heart, and the imagination are gifted to see: and sight must be reinforced by insight before souls can be discerned as well as manners, ideas as well as objects, realities and relations as well as appearances and accidental connections. [ Whipple ]
Art employs method for the symmetrical formation of beauty, as science employs it for the logical exposition of truth; but the mechanical process is, in the last, ever kept visibly distinct, while in the first it escapes from sight amid the shows of color and the curves of grace. [ Bulwer-Lytton ]
Good-humor, gay spirits, are the liberators, the sure cure for spleen and melancholy. Deeper than tears, these irradiate the tophets with their glad heavens. Go laugh, vent the pits, transmuting imps into angels by the alchemy of smiles. The satans flee at the sight of these redeemers. [ Alcott ]
Art is the microscope of the mind, which sharpens the wit as the other does the sight; and converts every object into a little universe in itself. Art may be said to draw aside the veil from nature. To those who are perfectly unskilled in the practice, unimbued with the principles of art, most objects present only a confused mass. [ Hazlitt ]
The man who will share his purse with you in the days of misfortune and distress, and like the good Samaritan, be surety for your support to the landlord, you may admit to your confidence, incorporate into the very core of your heart, and call him friend; misfortunes cannot shake him from you; a prison will not conceal you from his sight. [ J. Bartlett ]
The fact is, that of all God's gifts to the sight of man, color is the holiest, the most divine, the most solemn, We speak rashly of gay color and sad color, for color cannot at once be good and gay. All good color is in some degree pensive, the loveliest is melancholy, and the purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love color the most. [ Thomas Starr King ]
If the eye were so acute as to rival the finest microscope, and to discern the smallest hair upon the leg of a gnat, it would be a curse, and not a blessing to us; it would make all things appear rugged and deformed; the most finely polished crystal would be uneven and rough; the sight of our own selves would affright us; the smoothest skin would be beset all over with rugged scales and bristly hair. [ Bentley ]
The refining influence is the study of art, which is the science of beauty; and I find that every man values every scrap of knowledge in art, every observation of his own in it, every hint he has caught from another. For the laws of beauty are the beauty of beauty, and give the mind the same or a higher joy than the sight of it gives the senses. The study of art is of high value to the growth of the intellect. [ Emerson ]
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 ]
Society is infected with rude, cynical, restless, and frivolous persons who prey upon the rest, and whom no public opinion concentrated into good manners, forms accepted by the sense of all, can reach; the contradictors and railers at public and private tables, who are like terriers, who conceive it the duty of a dog of honor to growl at any passer-by, and do the honors of the house by barking him out of sight. [ Emerson ]
In the hands of genius, the driest stick becomes an Aaron's rod, and buds and blossoms out in poetry. Is he a Burns? the sight of a mountain daisy unseals the fountains of his nature, and he embalms the bonny gem
in the beauty of his spirit. Is he a Wordsworth? at his touch all nature is instinct with feeling; the spirit of beauty springs up in the footsteps of his going, and the darkest, nakedest grave becomes a sunlit bank empurpled with blossoms of life. [ H. N. Hudson ]
We have more poets than judges and interpreters of poetry. It is easier to write an indifferent poem than to understand a good one. There is, indeed, a certain low and moderate sort of poetry, that a man may well enough judge by certain rules of art: but the true, supreme, and divine poesy is equally above all rules and reason. And whoever discerns the beauty of it with the most assured and most steady sight sees no more than the quick reflection of a flash of lightning. [ Montaigne ]
What is more pleasing than the sight of the affectionate mother, watching with untiring devotion over her helpless child? Who can contemplate her devotion to the object of her love, enduring his waywardness, forgiving his faults, relieving his pains, and enjojdng his pleasures; pouring incessantly into his opening soul the mature wisdom of her counsels, and following him with her untiring prayers, as he finally goes forth to battle with the temptations and trials of life, without feeling that the true mother's heart is the noblest of heaven's gifts? [ H. Winslow ]
The love of flowers seems a naturally implanted passion, without any alloy or debasing object in its motive; we cherish them in youth, we admire them in declining years; but perhaps it is the early flowers of spring that always bring with them the greatest degree of pleasure; and our affections seem to expand at the sight of the first blossom under the sunny wall, or sheltered bank, however humble its race may be. With summer flowers we seem to live, as with our neighbors, in harmony and good order; but spring flowers are cherished as private friendships. [ G. A. Sola ]