The eye comes into existence first when man comes into existence.
Aitareya Brahmana, AB III 2 . Quoted from Kazanas, N. (2009). Indo-Aryan origins and other Vedic issues. Chapter 8
In her eyes a thought Grew sweet and sweeter, deepening like the dawn— A mystical forewarning!
Thomas Bailey Aldrich, "Pythagoras", Pampinea and Other Poems (New York: Budd & Carleton, 1861), p. 19.
A gray eye is a sly eye, And roguish is a brown one; Turn full upon me thy eye,— Ah, how its wavelets drown one! A blue eye is a true eye; Mysterious is a dark one, Which flashes like a spark-sun! A black eye is the best one.
William R. Alger, "Mirtsa Schaffy on Eyes", Poetry of the Orient (1865), p. 228.
Dark eyes adventure bring; the blue serene Do promise Paradise: and yours are green.
Hilaire Belloc, "On Eyes", epigram in essay "On 'And'" in On (1923), London, Methuen, p. 181. Also in Collected Verse (1958).
The night has a thousand eyes, And the day but one; Yet the light of the bright world dies With the dying sun.
Francis William Bourdillon, "Light" (popularly known as "The Night Has A Thousand Eyes"), published in The Spectator (October 1873).
The learned compute that seven hundred and seven millions of millions of vibrations have penetrated the eye before the eye can distinguish the tints of a violet.
The Chinese say that we Europeans have one eye, they themselves two, all the world else is blinde.
Robert Burton, Anatomy of a Melancholy (1621), Ed. 6, p. 40.
Her eye (I'm very fond of handsome eyes) Was large and dark, suppressing half its fire Until she spoke, then through its soft disguise Flash'd 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 chasten'd down the whole.
In every object there is inexhaustible meaning; the eye sees in it what the eye brings means of seeing.
Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution. A History (1837), Volume I, p. 5. People's ed. Heroes and Hero-Worship, The Hero as Poet; Miscellaneous Essays, Volume VI; Review of Vernhagen von Ense's Memoirs, P. 241. Same idea in Goethe's Zahme Xeniem, III.
Jehovah is in his holy temple. Jehovah’s throne is in the heavens. His own eyes see, his watchful eyes examine the sons of men.
And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit our the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?
T. S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1917)
The young watch television twenty-four hours a day, they don't read and they rarely listen. This incessant bombardment of images has developed a hypertrophied eye condition that's turning them into a race of mutants.
Before the throne was something resembling a glassy sea, like crystal. In the midst of the throne and around the throne were four living creatures that were full of eyes in front and behind. The first living creature was like a lion, and the second living creature was like a young bull, and the third living creature had a face like a man’s, and the fourth living creature was like a flying eagle.
They say ‘The eye came; it was a serpent; thus did poison come to the priests; he used these (verses) connected with (Soma) the purifying, and repelling poison, in praise’.
Kausitaki Brahmana 29, 1. Quoted from Kazanas, N. (2009). Indo-Aryan origins and other Vedic issues. Chapter 8
The lamp of the body is your eye. When your eye is focused, your whole body is also bright; but when it is envious, your body is also dark.
Anyone who injures their neighbor is to be injured in the same manner: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. The one who has inflicted the injury must suffer the same injury.
The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. 22 But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness... 23
Those true eyes Too pure and too honest in aught to disguise The sweet soul shining through them.
Owen Meredith (Lord Lytton), Lucile (1860), Part II, Canto II, Stanza 3.
When I consider how my light is spent, Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide Lodged with me useless.
Why has not man a microscopic eye? For this plain reason, Man is not a Fly. Say, what the use, were finer optics giv'n, T' inspect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n?
Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (1733-34), Epistle I, line 193.
Bright as the sun her eyes the gazers strike, And, like the sun, they shine on all alike.
Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock (1712), Canto II, line 13.
Her eyes were grey as mountain lakes Where dream of shadow stirs and breaks.
May Probyn, "Soapsuds", line 30, in Poems (London: W. Satchell & Co., 1881), p. 50.
The eye projects and focuses the inner image (idea) onto the physical world in the same manner that a motion picture camera transfers an image onto a screen. The mouth creates words. The ears create sound. The difficulty in understanding this principle is due to the fact that we’ve taken it for granted that the image and sound already exist for the senses to interpret. Actually the senses are the channels of creation by which idea is projected into material expression.
Thou tell'st me there is murder in mine eye; 'Tis pretty, sure, and very probable, That eyes, that are the frail'st and softest things, Who shut their coward gates on atomies, Should be call'd tyrants, butchers, murderers!
You have seen Sunshine and rain at once. * * * those happy smilets, That play'd on her ripe lip, seem'd not to know What guests were in her eyes; which parted thence, As pearls from diamonds dropp'd.
If I could write the beauty of your eyes, And in fresh numbers number all your graces, The age to come would say, "This poet lies; Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces."
Her two blue windows faintly she up-heaveth, Like the fair sun, when in his fresh array He cheers the morn, and all the earth relieveth; And as the bright sun glorifies the sky, So is her face illumin'd with her eye.
When you look into eyes, forget about romance, creation, and the windows into the soul. With their molecules, genes, and tissues derived from microbes, jellyfish, worms, and flies, you see an entire menagerie.
Neil Shubin, Your Inner Fish: A Journey Into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body.
The sight of you is good for sore eyes.
Jonathan Swift, Polite Conversation (c. 1738), Dialog. I.
A suppressed resolve will betray itself in the eyes.
George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss (1860), Book V, Chapter XIV.
An eye can threaten like a loaded and levelled gun, or can insult like hissing or kicking; or, in its altered mood, by beams of kindness, it can make the heart dance with joy.
Eyes are bold as lions,—roving, running, leaping, here and there, far and near. They speak all languages. They wait for no introduction; they are no Englishmen; ask no leave of age or rank; they respect neither poverty nor riches, neither learning nor power, nor virtue, nor sex, but intrude, and come again, and go through and through you in a moment of time. What inundation of life and thought is discharged from one soul into another through them!
Erasmus, Adagia, Dignitas et Excellentia et Inequalitas, sub-division, Excel. et Ineq. (about 1500). Proverbs collected by Michael Apostolios, Cent. VII. 31. Latin given as: Cæcorum in patria luscus rex imperat omnis. Taken from the Greek. See Chiliades—Adagiorum, fifth centuria, third Chilias No. 96. Earliest use probably in G. Fullenius—Comedye of Acolastus, translation. by John Palsgrave from the Latin. (1540). Quoted by Edmund Campion—Rationes Decom. (1581). Carlyle, Frederick the Great, Book 4, Chapter II. Quoted as: Beati monoculi in regione cæcorum. Blessed are the one-eyed in the country of the blind. Herbert, Jacula Prudentum (1651). Also in Miscellanæ, Part II. Fourth Ed., p. 342. Juvenal—Satire X. 227, gives it as: Ambes Perdidit ille oculus et luscis invidet.
To sun myself in Huncamunca's eyes.
Henry Fielding, The Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great, Act I, scene 3.
Ils sont si transparents qu'ils laissent voir votre ame.
Eyes so transparent, That through them one sees the soul.
On woman Nature did bestow two eyes, Like Hemian's bright lamps, in matchless beauty shining, Whose beams do soonest captivate the wise And wary heads, made rare by art's refining.
Her eyes the glow-worme lend thee, The shooting starres attend thee; And the elves also, Whose little eyes glow Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee.
Dark eyes—eternal soul of pride! Deep life in all that's true! * * * * Away, away to other skies! Away o'er seas and sands! Such eyes as those were never made To shine in other lands.
I dislike an eye that twinkles like a star. Those only are beautiful which, like the planets, have a steady, lambent light,—are luminous, but not sparkling.
Thine eyes are like the deep, blue, boundless heaven Contracted to two circles underneath Their long, fine lashes; dark, far, measureless, Orb within orb, and line through line inwoven.
But have ye not heard this, How an one-eyed man is Well sighted when He is among blind men?
John Skelton, Why come ye not to Courte? (writing against Wolsey).
Were you the earth dear love, and I the skies My love would shine on you like to the sun And look upon you with ten thousand eyes Till heaven waxed blind and till the world were done.
The Father of Heaven. Scoop, young Jesus, for her eyes, Wood-browned pools of Paradise— Young Jesus, for the eyes, For the eyes of Viola. Angels. Tint, Prince Jesus, a Duskèd eye for Viola!
For this is what Jehovah of armies says, who after being glorified has sent me to the nations that were plundering you: ‘Whoever touches you touches the pupil of my eye.