Look

“ A look affects a life; perhaps such insignificant instruments are chosen to keep us humble. Looking back, when we have gone further on our journey, we dimly understand it, but at the time the influences seem too small to be admitted. ”

“ The eye pales or kindles, lifts or lowers its look, and it spells desire or disdain, anger or promise—so many pages understood by man the moment he has an interest in reading them. To these gleams and these movements, the play of the eyelids adds its value. ”

“ This trouble in the eye—this looking into vacancy, and yet not being vacant—this irresolute and helpless look in one so resolute, so self-sustained, is to us one of the very highest results of that art which affects the mind through the eye. ”

“ Perceiving, even with its accompaniments of noting, wondering, fantasticating, kicked up no glare, but went on much rather under richest shades or in many-coloured lights—a tone of opportunity that I look back on as somehow at once deliciously soothing to myself and favourable to the clearness of each item of the picture even as the cool grey sky of a landscape is equalising. ”

“ Years had passed since last that sort of gaze had been fastened upon my face, for it was a gaze which unmistakably says, 'You have made an impression upon me which I cannot resist: everything about you is pleasing to me.' Try as I would to avoid this look, turn my head as I might to escape the gaze of those bewitching eyes—even when I closed my own and feigned sleep—still I felt their tender rays upon me, and never once did I find it otherwise. ”

“ Its aim is to teach the unscientific observer how to make use of his eye,—'how to look, and what to look at;' and to show him how much of wonder and beauty lies everywhere around him, if he could only recognise it. ”

“ LOVE IN A LOOK Let me but feel thy look's embrace,
Transparent, pure, and warm,
And I'll not ask to touch thy face,
Or fold thee with mine arm.
For in thine eyes a girl doth rise,
Arrayed in candid bliss,
And draws me to her with a charm
More close than any kiss. ”

“ for it is amazing how lovely common things become, if one only knows how to look at them.” ”

“ And you'll sit beside me, and we'll look, not at visions, but at realities." ”

“ Men's eyes were made to look, and let them gaze. ”

“ Expression, sentiment, truth to nature, are essential; but all these are not enough. I never care to look at a picture again, if it be ill composed; and if well composed I can hardly leave off looking at it. ”

“ It would be worth the while to look closely into the eye which has been open and seeing at such hours, and in such solitudes, its dull, yellowish, greenish eye. Methinks my own soul must be a bright invisible green. ”

“ It will help you to become conscious of these mind's eye pictures if you will look away from the stranger's face for a moment and see both the face and name pictures in the visual impression which you have been forming. ”

“ a look is the fire itself. She gave that look, and carried it away to the treasury of heaven, where all things that are divine belong. ”

“ in fine, I bid him look into the lives of men, as though into a mirror, and from others to take an example for himself. ”

“ 'The beginning of all Wisdom is to look fixedly on Clothes, or even with armed eyesight, till they become transparent. ”

“ The phenomenon is particularly striking at the sight of certain human figures and faces, especially when beholding certain eyes, certain facial expressions, certain gestures, when hearing certain words, when reading certain passages, by looking over when looking at certain aspects of life, the world and fate. ”

“ The question is not what you look at, but what you see. ”

“ Here she drew forth a small pocket-book, took from it a card and a pencil and, after meditating a moment, wrote a few words. It is our privilege to look over her shoulder, and if we exercise it we may read the brief query: “Could I see you this evening for a few moments on a very important matter?” ”

“ The word Mother is the most sacred of all names, and motherhood is the closest of all human ties. Oh, Mother! when you nestle your little one to your loving breast and look into the eyes that reflect the mother-love shining from your own, do you not sometimes think with an involuntary shudder of the sorrow and grief it would he were the child to be taken from you? ”

“ "Page," said he, "Come here, your eyes than mine can better see, For sight is woman-like and shuns the old; Ah! he can see enough, when years are told, Who backwards looks. ”

“ And the gay young voice as in hours of yore.
It still seems strange to be here alone,
With the rising sob of the wind without;
The sound takes a deep, insisting tone,
Where the trees are swinging their arms about.
Its moaning reaches the sheltered room,
And thrills my heart with a sense of pain;
I walk to the window, and pierce the gloom,
With a yearning look that is all in vain.
You are out in a night of depths that hold
No promise of dawning for you and me,
And only a ghost from the life of old
Has come from the world of memory!
You are out evermore! God wills it so! ”

“ Dip to tranquil shores of jasper, where the watching angel beams.
But, behold! our eyes are human, and our way is paved with pain,
We can never find Hy-Brasil, never see its hills again!
Never look on bays of crystal, never bend the reverent knee
In the sight of Eden floating — floating on the sapphire sea!
Outre Mer
I see, as one in dreaming,
A broad, bright, quiet sea;
Beyond it lies a haven —
The only home for me.
Some men grow strong with trouble,
But all my strength is past,
And tired and full of sorrow,
I long to sleep at last. ”

“ The seeing eyes of the river men see the ugliness of a coming flood-wave in the look of a crossing or reach. Again, they catch the gentleness of the slacking and loafing waters by the wash of an eddy under a wide sand-bar. ”

“ Your attention, if possible, should be so ready as to observe every person in the room at once, their motions, their looks, and their turns of expression, and that without staring or seeming to be an observer. ”

“ Faces.—Several of these denote an invitation to a party or wedding; ugly faces mean disturbances or bad news; pretty faces, pleasure and love; two faces upon one head, looking diverse ways, indicate that you may hear yourself accused of deception and falseness, or that these things may be practised upon you; a bearded face, health and strength, but an indolent nature, which is a source of vexation to those around you. ”

“ I LEFT thee last, a child at heart,
A woman scarce in years:
I come to thee, a solemn corpse
Which neither feels nor fears.
I have no breath to use in sighs;
They laid the dead-weights on mine eyes
To seal them safe from tears.
Look on me with thine own calm look:
I meet it calm as thou. ”

“ Those eyes whose light seemed rather given
To be adored than to adore—
Such eyes as may have lookt from heaven
But ne'er were raised to it before! ”

“ And you, my Love, as high as heaven above,
Yet should the thoughts of me, your humble swain,
Ascend to heaven in honour of my love.
Were I as high as heaven above the plain,
And you, my Love, as humble and as low
As are the deepest bottoms of the main,
Wheresoe'er you were, with you my love should go.
Were you the earth, dear Love, and I the skies,
My love should shine on you like to the Sun,
And look upon you with ten thousand eyes,
Till heaven wax'd blind, and till the world were done. ”

“ there was no clue to what he looked for, but he looked for something, with a most intent and searching gaze. ”

“ Turn the eyes upside down, by looking at the landscape through your legs, and how agreeable is the picture, though you have seen it any time these twenty years! ”

“ He looked around, as if he was seeing the world for the first time. ”

“ "It's you who are telling me; opening my eyes to things I'd looked at so long that I'd ceased to see them." ”

“ The averted eyes, the beautiful color that flushed her cheeks, and, best and dearest sight of all, the perplexed, mystified, dimly conscious expression in the far-off distant gaze, as if the soul was vainly struggling to grasp and clearly comprehend a great truth but vaguely felt. ”

“ As a young and vivid force that might one day develop into symmetry and management of self, he was a charm to the speculating eye. But of finished beauty he had only two features—the eyes, big, bold, and gray, and the big, sweet mouth. ”

“ The eye is the royal road to the mind, and most people are eye-minded; and the moving picture is a wonderful agency to convey to the mind, through the eye, accurate pictures of the world around us, natural and social. ”

“ I found that of the senses, the eye is the most superficial, the ear the most arrogant, smell the most voluptuous, taste the most superstitious and fickle, touch the most profound and the most philosophical. ”

“ But let your sight begin to fail, let your eyes become darkened, and soon you discover that you are one of thousands—that good sight is the exception, that almost everyone has something the matter with his eyes. ”

“ When you recall and picture an impression in words you give us, listeners and readers, no more than a sight of things in a mirror, not a direct view of them; but at the same time there is something of which you do indeed give us a direct view, as we may say, and that is the mirror, your mind itself. ”

“ All will say no. Then the shadow comes in contact with something. Now what is that something called sight or one of the senses? Is it matter? The natural man cannot answer that question any more than the brute. He says the eye is the sight. ”

“ The eye examines the human countenance with such rapidity and such accuracy that no one will ever succeed in giving in words a picture of the minute details and fugitive traits which we see appear and disappear on the face during emotion. ”

“ There is a purpose in the gaze which these eyes extend to the observer, and the attitude, although intended to be a natural one, is quite evidently studied and assumed. It is intended to give full play to the face and eyes, and to reveal the graceful curves of the arms and the slender beauty of the fingers. ”

“ Whereas we maintain, that the only eye that we have—the only eye we can form any conception of, is the visible eye that belongs to the visible body, as a part does to a whole; whether this eye be originally revealed to us by the touch, by the sight, by the reason, or by the imagination. ”

“ The consideration of these two senses, sight and hearing, with their appropriate objects, light and sound, sufficiently explain and illustrate our point. For what holds good with regard to them, holds equally good with regard to all our other perceptions. ”

“ Enquiry into an obscure subject, fixes the body in one posture, the head stooping, and the eye poring, the eyebrows drawn down.
Attention to an esteemed, or superior character, has the same aspect, and requires silence; the eyes often cast down upon the ground; sometimes fixed on the face of the speaker ”

“ Yet even this wonderful eye cannot show us everything. Some see farther than others, some see more minutely than others, according as the lens of the eye is flatter in one person and more rounded in another. ”