[Ads-l] "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder"

[Shapiro, Fred]

The New Yale Book of Quotations traces this proverb to 1788.

Fred Shapiro


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From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Bill Mullins <amcombill at HOTMAIL.COM>
Sent: Saturday, July 4, 2026 4:31 PM
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Subject: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder"

Wikipedia, and many others, credit this to Margaret Wolfe Hungerford's novel Molly Bawn (1878).

1848 Horace Mann, letter to C. Pierce 24 Apr
[quoted in 1865 Mary Peabody Mann Life of Horace Mann 266]

Now, do not laugh at my adjective; for beauty, you know, is in the eye of the beholder... . [ellipsis in original]

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1869 Annie Thomas False Colours. A Novel Vol II 196

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is a truism that does not apply solely to physical beauty.

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