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

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Intriguing topic, Bill and Fred. The entry in The New Yale Book of
Quotations (NYBQ) includes some earlier partial matches.

[Begin entry of The New Yale Book of Quotations]
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Richard Cumberland, The Observer (1788). Cumberland's wording is
"Beauty, gentlemen, is in the eye, I aver it to be in the eye of the
beholder and not in the object itself."

The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs states: "The idea is a very old one:
THEOCRITUS Idyll . . . for in the eyes of love that which is not
beautiful often seems beautiful. Cf. 1742 HUME Essays Moral &
Political II. 151 Beauty, properly speaking, lyes . . . in the
Sentiment or Taste of the Reader."
[End entry of The New Yale Book of Quotations]

Here is a partial match in 1631 that uses the word "beauty" and the
phrase "eye of the beholder".

[Begin excerpt]
Outward beauty is more in the eye of the beholder, then in the face
that is seene;
[End excerpt]

[Begin metadata from ProQuest]
Occasionall meditations by Ios. Exon ; set forth by R.H.
Bibliographic name/number: STC (2nd ed.) / 12688.5.
Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656.  EEBO The Huntington Library records
unstructured. [14], 232, [12], 233-347, [5] p. London:
Printed by W.S. for Nath. Butter, 1631.
[End metadata from ProQuest]

Garson

On Sat, Jul 4, 2026 at 6:50 PM Shapiro, Fred
<00001ac016895344-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
>
> The New Yale Book of Quotations traces this proverb to 1788.
>
> Fred Shapiro

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