beauty

See Also: BEAUTY, DEFINED; FACE; PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

1. (He was) all beauty, as the sun is all light —Phyllis Bottome
2. Beautiful and faded like an old opera tune played upon a harpsichord —Amy Lowell
3. Beautiful and freckled as a tiger lily —O. Henry
4. Beautiful as a feather in one’s cap —Thomas Carlyle
5. (He is) beautiful as a law of chemistry —Robert Penn Warren
6. Beautiful as a motherless fawn —Bruce De Silva
7. Beautiful as an angel —William Paterson
8. Beautiful as an icon —Rachel Ingalls
9. Beautiful as an illusion —Angela Carter
10. Beautiful as a prince in a fairy story —Mary Lee Settle
11. Beautiful as a rainbow —John Dryden
12. Beautiful as a well-handled tool —Stephen Vincent Benét
13. Beautiful as a woman’s blush and as evanescent too —Letitia Landon
14. (For he was) beautiful as day —Lord Byron
15. Beautiful as fire —Ambrose Bierce
16. Beautiful as honey poured from a jar —People book review
17. (There was a woman) beautiful as morning —Percy Bysshe Shelley
18. Beautiful as nature in the spring —O. S. Wondersford
19. Beautiful as sky and earth —John Greenleaf Whittier
20. (She was as) beautiful as the devil, and twice as dangerous —Dashiell Hammett
21. Beautiful as youth —Dollie Radford
22. Beautiful … like a dream of youth —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
23. Beauty … extraordinary, as if it were painted —Anita Brookner
24. Beauty in a woman’s face, like sweetness in a woman’s lips, is a matter of taste —M. W. Little
25. Beauty is as good as ready money —German proverb
26. Beauty is striking as deformity is striking —Edmund Burke
27. Beauty, like a lantern’s light, will shine outward from within him —George Garrett
28. Beauty … like fine cutlery —John Gardner
29. Donned beauty like a robe —Iris Murdoch
30. Exquisite as the jam of the gods —Tennessee Williams
31. Fair as a lily —Diaphenia

    One of the most popular and enduring flower/beauty comparisons.

32. Fair as any rose —Christina Rossetti
33. Fair as a star —William Wordsworth
34. Fair as heaven or freedom won —Algernon Charles Swinburne
35. Fair as is the rose in May —Geoffrey Chaucer
36. Fair as marble —Percy Bysshe Shelley
37. Fairer than the morning star —Oscar Wilde
38. A fair face without a fair soul is like a glass eye that shines and sees nothing —John Stuart Blackie
39. Gorgeous as Aladdin’s cave —Eleanor Mercein Kelly
40. (In the dingy park) her beauty fled as swiftly as the marmalade kitten had leapt from her grasp —William Trevor
41. Her beauty was as cool as this damp breeze, as the moist softness of her own lips —F. Scott Fitzgerald
42. He’s as pretty as those long-defunct lover-gods —Charles Simic
43. (A novel that would be as) lovely as a Persian carpet, and as unreal —Oscar Wilde
44. Lovely as Spring’s first rose —William Wordsworth
45. Lovely as the evening moon —Amy Lowell
46. Outstanding beauty, like outstanding gifts of any kind, tends to get in the way of normal emotional development, and thus of that particular success in life which we call happiness —Milton R. Sapirstein
47. Pretty as a diamond flush —Alfred Henry Lewis
48. (Face …) pretty as a greeting card —Donald E. Westlake
49. Pretty as a new-laid egg —American colloquialism, attributed to Midwest
50. (There sat Mary) pretty as a rose —Jump Rope Rhyme
51. Pretty as a spotted pony —American colloquialism, attributed to Southeast
52. Pretty as a spotted pup —Mary Hood
53. Pretty as a wax doll —Katherine Mansfield
54. Pretty as the carved face on a … cameo —Davis Grubb
55. Pretty like children on their birthdays —Truman Capote
56. Shed beauty like winter trees —George Garrett
57. She walks in beauty like the night —Lord Byron

    A timeless and much quoted Byron line. It continues with “Of cloudless nights and starry skies.”

58. She was lovely as a flower, and, like a flower, she passed away —Richard Le Gallienne
59. There is in true beauty, as in courage, something which narrow souls cannot dare to admire —William Congreve

    In the original manuscript of The Old Bachelor the word ‘something’ was ‘somewhat.’

60. A thing of beauty is a joy forever —John Keats

    A Keats classic that embodies the rule that when it comes to including or implying ‘like’ or ‘as,’ discretion is best.