Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Hair
And from that luckless hour my tyrant fair
Has led and turned me by a single hair.
Bland—Anthology. P. 20. (Ed. 1813).
His hair stood upright like porcupine quills.
Boccaccio—Decameron. Fifth Day. Nov. 8.
Dear, dead women, with such hair, too—what’s become of all the gold
Used to hang and brush their bosoms?
Robert Browning—Men and Women. A Toccata of Galuppi’s. St. 15.
And though it be a two-foot trout,
’Tis with a single hair pulled out.
Butler—Hudibras.
Those curious locks so aptly twin’d,
Whose every hair a soul doth bind.
Carew—To A. L. Persuasions to Love. L. 37.
Stultum est in luctu capillum sibi evellere, quasi calvitio mæror levaretur.
It is foolish to pluck out one’s hair for sorrow, as if grief could be assuaged by baldness.
Cicero—Tusculanarum Disputationum. III. 26.
Within the midnight of her hair,
Half-hidden in its deepest deeps.
Barry Cornwall—Pearl Wearers.
An harmless flaming meteor shone for hair,
And fell adown his shoulders with loose care.
Abraham Cowley—Davideis. Bk. II. L. 803.
His head,
Not yet by time completely silver’d o’er,
Bespoke him past the bounds of freakish youth,
But strong for service still, and unimpair’d.
Cowper—The Task. Bk. II. The Timepiece. L. 702.
Tresses, that wear
Jewels, but to declare
How much themselves more precious are.
Richard Crashaw—Wishes to his (supposed) Mistress.
She knows her man, and when you rant and swear,
Can draw you to her with a single hair.
Dryden—Persius. Satire V. L. 246.
When you see fair hair
Be pitiful.
George Eliot—The Spanish Gypsy. Bk. IV.
Bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.
Genesis. XIII. 38.
Beware of her fair hair, for she excels
All women in the magic of her locks;
And when she winds them round a young man’s neck,
She will not ever set him free again.
Goethe—Scenes from Faust. Sc. The Hartz Mountain. L. 335. Shelley’s trans.
Loose his beard, and hoary hair
Stream’d, like a meteor, to the troubled air.
Gray—The Bard. I. 2. L. 5.
It was brown with a golden gloss, Janette,
It was finer than silk of the floss, my pet;
’Twas a beautiful mist falling down to your wrist,
’Twas a thing to be braided, and jewelled, and kissed—
’Twas the loveliest hair in the world, my pet.
Chas. G. Halpine (Miles O’Reilly)—Janette’s Hair.
And yonder sits a maiden,
The fairest of the fair,
With gold in her garment glittering,
And she combs her golden hair.
Heine—The Lorelei. St. 3.
I pray thee let me and my fellow have
A hair of the dog that bit us last night.
John Heywood—Proverbs. Pt. I. Ch. XI. L. 424.
But she is vanish’d to her shady home
Under the deep, inscrutable; and there
Weeps in a midnight made of her own hair.
Hood—Hero and Leander. 116.
Cui flavam religas comam
Simplex munditiis?
For whom do you bind your hair, plain in your neatness?
Horace—Carmina. I. 5. 4. Melton’s trans.
One hair of a woman can draw more than a hundred pair of oxen.
James Howell—Familiar Letters. Bk. 2. Sect. 4. To T. D., Esq.
The little wind that hardly shook
The silver of the sleeping brook
Blew the gold hair about her eyes,—
A mystery of mysteries.
So he must often pause, and stoop,
And all the wanton ringlets loop
Behind her dainty ear—emprise
Of slow event and many sighs.
W. D. Howells—Through the Meadow.
My mother bids me bind my hair
With bands of rosy hue,
Tie up my sleeves with ribbands rare,
And lace my bodice blue;
For why, she cries, sit still and weep,
While others dance and play?
Alas, I scarce can go or creep,
While Rubin is away.
Anne Hunter—My Mother Bids Me Bind My Hair.
Though time has touched it in his flight,
And changed the auburn hair to white.
Longfellow—Christus. The Golden Legend. Pt. IV. L. 388.
Her cap of velvet could not hold
The tresses of her hair of gold,
That flowed and floated like the stream.
And fell in masses down her neck.
Longfellow—Christus. The Golden Legend. Pt. VI. L. 375.
You manufacture, with the aid of unguents, a false head of hair, and your bald and dirty skull is covered with dyed locks. There is no need to have a hairdresser for your head. A sponge, Phæbus, would do the business better.
Martial—Epigrams. Bk. VI. Ep. 57.
You collect your straggling hairs on each side, Marinus, endeavoring to conceal the vast expanse of your shining bald pate by the locks which still grow on your temples. But the hairs disperse, and return to their own place with every gust of wind; flanking your bare poll on either side with crude tufts. We might imagine we saw Hermeros of Cydas standing between Speudophorus and Telesphorus. Why not confess yourself an old man? Be content to seem what you really are, and let the barber shave off the rest of your hair. There is nothing more contemptible than a bald man who pretends to have hair.
Martial—Epigrams. Bk. X. Ep. 83.
The very hairs of your head are all numbered.
Matthew. X. 30.
Munditiis capimur: non sine lege capillis.
We are charmed by neatness of person; let not thy hair be out of order.
Ovid—Ars Amatoria. III. 133.
Her head was bare;
But for her native ornament of hair;
Which in a simple knot was tied above,
Sweet negligence, unheeded bait of love!
Ovid—Metamorphoses. Meleager and Atalanta. L. 68. Dryden’s trans.
Fair tresses man’s imperial race insnare,
And beauty draws us with a single hair.
Pope—Rape of the Lock. Canto II. L. 27.
Hoary whiskers and a forky beard.
Pope—Rape of the Lock. Canto III. L. 37.
Then cease, bright nymph! to mourn thy ravish’d hair
Which adds new glory to the shining sphere;
Not all the tresses that fair head can boast
Shall draw such envy as the lock you lost,
For after all the murders of your eye,
When, after millions slain, yourself shall die;
When those fair suns shall set, as set they must,
And all those tresses shall be laid in dust,
This Lock the Muse shall consecrate to fame,
And ’midst the stars inscribe Belinda’s name.
Pope—Rape of the Lock. Canto V. Last lines.
Ere on thy chin the springing beard began
To spread a doubtful down, and promise man.
Prior—An Ode to the Memory of the Honourable Colonel George Villiers. L. 5.
The hoary beard is a crown of glory if it be found in the way of righteousness.
Proverbs. XVI. 31.
Tarry at Jericho until your beards be grown.
II Samuel. X. 5.
Golden hair, like sunlight streaming
On the marble of her shoulder.
J. G. Saxe—The Lover’s Vision. St. 3.
His hair is of a good colour.
An excellent colour; your chestnut was ever the only colour.
As You Like It. Act III. Sc. 4. L. 11.
Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand an-end,
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine.
Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 5. L. 15.
And his chin new reap’d,
Show’d like a stubble-land at harvest-home.
Henry IV. Pt. I. Act I. Sc. 3. L. 34.
How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!
Henry IV. Pt. II. Act V. Sc. 5. L. 52.
Comb down his hair; look, look! it stands upright.
Henry VI. Pt. II. Act III. Sc. 3. L. 15.
Bind up those tresses. O, what love I note
In the fair multitude of those her hairs!
Where but by chance a silver drop hath fallen,
Even to that drop ten thousand wiry friends
Do glue themselves in sociable grief,
Like true, inseparable, faithful loves,
Sticking together in calamity.
King John. Act III. Sc. 4. L. 61.
And her sunny locks
Hang on her temples like a golden fleece.
Merchant of Venice. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 169.
What a beard hast thou got! thou hast got more hair on thy chin than Dobbin my fill-horse has on his tail.
Merchant of Venice. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 99.
Alas, poor chin! many a wart is richer.
Troilus and Cressida. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 154.
Her hair is auburn, mine is perfect yellow:
If that be all the difference in his love,
I’ll get me such a colour’d periwig.
Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act IV. Sc. 4. L. 194.
Thy fair hair my heart enchained.
Sir Philip Sidney—Neapolitan Villanell.
Her long loose yellow locks lyke golden wyre,
Sprinckled with perle, and perling flowres atweene,
Doe lyke a golden mantle her attyre.
Spenser—Epithalamion. St. 9.
Ah, thy beautiful hair! so was it once braided for me, for me;
Now for death is it crowned, only for death, lover and lord of thee.
Swinburne—Choriambics. St. 5.
But, rising up,
Robed in the long night of her deep hair, so
To the open window moved.
Tennyson—Princess.
The Father of Heaven.
Spin, daughter Mary, spin,
Twirl your wheel with silver din;
Spin, daughter Mary, spin,
Spin a tress for Viola.
Francis Thompson—The Making of Viola. St. 1.
Come let me pluck that silver hair
Which ’mid thy clustering curls I see;
The withering type of time or care
Has nothing, sure, to do with thee.
Alaric Alex Watts—The Grey Hair.
Her hair is bound with myrtle leaves,
(Green leaves upon her golden hair!)
Green grasses through the yellow sheaves
Of Autumn corn are not more fair.
Oscar Wilde—La Bella Donna delta mia Mente.