Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Face
It is the common wonder of all men, how among so many millions of faces there should be none alike.
Sir Thomas Browne—Religio Medici. Pt. II. Sec. II.
A face to lose youth for, to occupy age
With the dream of, meet death with.
Robert Browning—A Likeness.
Showing that if a good face is a letter of recommendation, a good heart is a letter of credit.
Bulwer-Lytton—What Will He Do With It? Bk. II. Title of Ch. XI.
As clear and as manifest as the nose in a man’s face.
Burton—Anatomy of Melancholy. Pt. III. Sec. III. Memb. 4. Subsec. I.
And her face so fair
Stirr’d with her dream, as rose-leaves with the air.
Byron—Don Juan. Canto IV. St. 29.
Yet even her tyranny had such a grace,
The women pardoned all, except her face.
Byron—Don Juan. Canto V. St. 113.
And to his eye
There was but one beloved face on earth,
And that was shining on him.
Byron—The Dream. St. 2.
There is a garden in her face,
Where roses and white lilies blow;
A heavenly paradise is that place,
Wherein all pleasant fruits do grow.
There cherries grow that none may buy,
Till cherry ripe themselves do cry.
Campion claims these in note To Reader, Fourth Book of Airs. Arber in English Garner, follows original. Attributed to Richard Allison by W. D. Adams, Frederick Locker-Lampson, Charles Mackay. To Campion by Ernest Rhys, A. H. Bullen.
The magic of a face.
Thomas Carew—Epitaph on the Lady S——.
He had a face like a benediction (blessing).
Cervantes—Don Quixote. Bk. II. Pt. I. Ch. IV.
The face the index of a feeling mind.
Crabbe—Tales of the Hall.
Well had the boding tremblers learn’d to trace
The day’s disasters in his morning face.
Goldsmith—The Deserted Village. L. 199.
Her face betokened all things dear and good,
The light of somewhat yet to come was there
Asleep, and waiting for the opening day,
When childish thoughts, like flowers, would drift away.
Jean Ingelow—Margaret in the Xebec. St. 57.
How some they have died, and some they have left me,
And some are taken from me; all are departed;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
Lamb—The Old Familiar Faces.
A face that had a story to tell. How different faces are in this particular! Some of them speak not. They are books in which not a line is written, save perhaps a date.
Longfellow—Hyperion. Bk. I. Ch. IV.
These faces in the mirrors
Are but the shadows and phantoms of myself.
Longfellow—Masque of Pandora. Pt. II. The House of Epimetheus. L. 72.
The light upon her face
Shines from the windows of another world.
Saints only have such faces.
Longfellow—Michael Angelo. Pt. II. 6.
Oh! could you view the melody
Of every grace,
And music of her face,
You’d drop a tear,
Seeing more harmony
In her bright eye,
Than now you hear.
Lovelace—Orpheus to Beasts. St. 2.
Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.—
Her lips suck forth my soul; see, where it flies!—
Marlowe—Faustus.
Human face divine.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. III. L. 44.
In her face excuse
Came prologue, and apology too prompt.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. IX. L. 853.
Vous avez bien la face descouverte; moi je suis tout face.
You have your face bare; I am all face.
Montaigne—Essays. Vol. I. Ch. XXXV. Answer of a naked beggar who was asked whether he was not cold. Same in Fuller—Worthies. Berkshire. P. 82. 3rd Ed. (1662).
Cheek***
Flushing white and mellow’d red;
Gradual tints, as when there glows
In snowy milk the bashful rose.
Moore—Odes of Anacreon. Ode XV. L. 27.
With faces like dead lovers who died true.
D. M. Mulock—Indian Summer.
Sæpe tacens vocem verbaque vultus habet.
Often a silent face has voice and words.
Ovid—Ars Amatoria. Bk. I. 574.
If to her share some female errors fall
Look on her face, and you’ll forget ’em all.
Pope—Rape of the Lock. Canto II. L. 17.
Lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us.
Psalms. IV. 6.
A sweet attractive kinde of grace,
A full assurance given by lookes,
Continuall comfort in a face
The lineaments of Gospell bookes.
Matthew Royden. Elegie: or a Friend’s Passion for his Astrophill. (Sir Philip Sidney).
On his bold visage middle age
Had slightly press’d its signet sage,
Yet had not quenched the open truth
And fiery vehemence of youth;
Forward and frolic glee was there,
The will to do, the soul to dare.
Scott—Lady of The Lake. Canto I. St. 21.
Sea of upturned faces.
Scott—Rob Roy. Vol. II. Ch. XX. Daniel Webster. Speech. Sept. 30, 1842.
All men’s faces are true, whatsome’er their hands are.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act II. Sc. 6. L. 102.
Thou hast a grim appearance, and thy face
Bears a command in ’t: though thy tackle’s torn,
Thou show’st a noble vessel.
Coriolanus. Act IV. Sc. 5. L. 66.
A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.
Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 232.
God has given you one face, and you make yourselves another.
Hamlet. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 149.
In thy face
I see thy fury: if I longer stay
We shall begin our ancient bickerings.
Henry VI. Pt. II. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 142.
There is a fellow somewhat near the door; he should be a brazier by his face.
Henry VIII. Act V. Sc. 4. L. 41.
I have seen better faces in my time
Than stands on any shoulder that I see.
King Lear. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 99.
There’s no art
To find the mind’s construction in the face.
Macbeth. Act I. Sc. 4. L. 11.
Your face, my thane, is a book where men
May read strange matters. To beguile the time,
Look like the time.
Macbeth. Act I. Sc. 5. L. 63.
You have such a February face,
So full of frost, of storm, of cloudiness.
Much Ado About Nothing. Act V. Sc. 4. L. 41.
Compare her face with some that I shall show;
And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.
Romeo and Juliet. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 91.
Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn.
Sonnet LXVIII.
An unforgiving eye, and a damned disinheriting countenance.
R. B. Sheridan—School for Scandal. Act IV. Sc. 1.
Her angel’s face,
As the great eye of heaven, shyned bright,
And made a sunshine in the shady place.
Spenser—Faerie Queene. Bk. I. Canto III. St. 4.
Her cheeks so rare a white was on,
No daisy makes comparison;
(Who sees them is undone);
For streaks of red were mingled there,
Such as are on a Cath’rine pear,
(The side that’s next the Sun).
Sir John Suckling—A Ballad Upon a Wedding. St. 10.
Her face is like the Milky Way i’ the sky,—
A meeting of gentle lights without a name.
Sir John Suckling—Brennoralt. Act III.
White rose in red rose-garden
Is not so white;
Snowdrops, that plead for pardon
And pine for fright
Because the hard East blows
Over their maiden vows,
Grow not as this face grows from pale to bright.
Swinburne—Before the Mirror.
A face with gladness overspread!
Soft smiles, by human kindness bred!
Wordsworth—To a Highland Girl.
My face. Is this long strip of skin
Which bears of worry many a trace,
Of sallow hue, of features thin,
This mass of seams and lines, my face?
Edmund Yates—Aged Forty.