Fairest Quotes & Sayings

You never know what is waiting for you around the corner. You start the day with the fairest prospects, and before nightfall everything is as rocky and ding-basted as stig tossed full of doodlegammon. — P.G. Wodehouse

And then his true courtship of her had its beginning; and to the worship of his body, he joined the fairest garlands from the treasure-house of his mind, and made a bower for her.

Adored; caressed into delight; conducted by delicate paths into ravishing labyrinths where pleasure, like carillons on glass, played upon pleasure, she leaned on his voice, and sometimes answered it. — Dorothy Dunnett

Ares ever loves to pluck all the fairest flower of an armed host. — Aeschylus

Bonjour to all the beautiful people of Montreal because this is like home to me. We had Sugar Ray Leonard here who changed the globe and took on Roberto Duran right here in Montreal. How did we get to Montreal? Because it's one of the fairest cities in the world. We were looking for a neutral site and we picked Montreal. Sugar Ray Leonard came in and Roberto Duran beat him - because we got our fair shake in Montreal. — Don King

I have seen the glories of art and architecture, and mountain and river; I have seen the sunset on the Jungfrau, and the full moon rise over Mont Blanc; but the fairest vision on which these eyes ever looked was the flag of my country in a foreign land. Beautiful as a flower to those who hate it, terrible as a meteor to those who hate it, it is the symbol of the power and glory, and the honor, of fifty million Americans. — George Frisbie Hoar

Envy, like the worm, never runs but to the fairest fruit; like a cunning bloodhound, it singles out the fattest deer in the flock. — Francis Beaumont

For 'tis green, green, green, where the ruined towers are gray, And it's green, green, green, all the happy night and day; Green of leaf and green of sod, green of ivy on the wall, And the blessed Irish shamrock with the fairest green of all. — Mary Elizabeth McGrath Blake

Mirror, mirror, on the wall. Who is the fairest of them all?

I whisper it first then I say it louder: 'It's called a mirror.' I shout over their excited yelping.

I have turned away from its pretty silver surface as quickly as I can. I was my coarse hair, my dark worried eyes, and my wide, unlovely mouth.

Who is the fairest of them all?

Not me. — Lesley Hauge

For seven men she gave her life. For one good man she was his wife. Beneath the ice by Snow White Falls, there lies the fairest of them all. — Kathryn Wesley

Ask her who means freedom, whose name is love. Do not inquire of your intellect, do not search backwards through world history. Your soul will not blame you for having cared too little about politics, for having exerted yourself too little, hated your enemies too little, or too little fortified your frontiers. But she will perhaps blame you for so often having feared and fled from her demands, for never having had time to give her, your youngest and fairest child, no time to play with her, no time to listen to her song, for often having sold her for money, betrayed her for advancement ... You will be neurotic and a foe to life
so says your soul
if you neglect me, and you will be destroyed if you do not turn to me with a wholly new love and concern. — Hermann Hesse

The poet speaks to you about the day, and about this very day that is flying. Is there, then, any doubt that for hapless mortals, that is, for men who are engrossed, the fairest day is ever the first to flee? Old age surprises them while their minds are still childish, and they come to it unprepared and unarmed, for they have made no provision for it; they have stumbled upon it suddenly and unexpectedly, they did not notice that it was drawing nearer day by day. Even as conversation or reading or deep meditation on some subject beguiles the traveller, and he finds that he has reached the end of his journey before he was aware that he was approaching it, just so with this unceasing and most swift journey of life, which we make at the same pace whether waking or sleeping; those who are engrossed become aware of it only at the end. — Seneca.

The United States is the best and fairest and most decent nation on the face of the earth. — George H. W. Bush

Behold the box of jabberlock's, the fairest rests inside. But free the dame and ease her pain to slip into her tide. An ocean red from bonds of love, and paint the roses' hearts thereof, applied with wisps of finest strand and guided by an artist's hand. One trade of souls will shut the door, and blood shall seal it, evermore. — A.G. Howard

What would you here, unhappy mortal, and for what cause have you left your own land to enter this, which is forbidden to such as you? Can you show reason why my power should not be laid on you in heavy punishment for your insolence and folly?" Then Beren looking up beheld the eyes of Luthien, and his glance went also to the face of Melian; and it seemed to him that words were put into his mouth. Fear left him, and the pride of the eldest house of Men returned to him; and he said: "My fate, O King, led me hither, through perils such as few even of the Elves would dare. And here I have found what I sought not indeed, but finding I would possess for ever. For it is above all gold and silver, and beyond all jewels. Neither rock, nor steel, nor the fires of Morgoth, nor all the powers of the Elf-kingdoms, shall keep from me the treasure that I desire. For Luthien your daughter is the fairest of all the Children of the World." Then silence fell upon the hall ... — J.R.R. Tolkien

The rose is fairest when 't is budding new, And hope is brightest when it dawns from fears. The rose is sweetest wash'd with morning dew, And love is loveliest when embalm'd in tears. — Walter Scott

Fairest lady," said Candide, "when a man is in love, jealous, and whipped by the Inquisition, he no longer knows what he's doing. — Voltaire

Avery fine city; the four principal streets are the fairest for breadth, and the finest built that I have ever seen in one city together? In a word,'tis the cleanest and beautifullest, and best built city in Britain, London excepted. — Daniel Defoe

He went on to say that if the Wicked Queen were around today, the whole story might have been different, because she would have looked in her Magic Mirror and said, If I got a little laser work around the jaw and eyelids, I might still be considered the Fairest in the Land. — Suzanne Finnamore

The rule of the people has the fairest name of all, equality (isonomia), and does none of the things that a monarch does. The lot determines offices, power is held accountable, and deliberation is conducted in public. — Herodotus

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true science. He who knows it not, and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead. We all had this priceless talent when we were young. But as time goes by, many of us lose it. The true scientist never loses the faculty of amazement. It is the essence of his being. — Hans Selye

Nita stood there horrified. "You just killed him!"
"No," the Lone One said, "you did. Not a bad start, but then you were intent enough on killing something."
All around Nita, the snarling of the viruses was getting louder and louder. "Anyway, don't be too concerned about Pralaya; I'll find another of his people to replace him if there's need. Now, though, matters stand as I told you they stood. All we need is your conscious answer to the question. Can we do business?"
Nita stood there, frozen.
And another voice spoke out of the darkness.
"Fairest and Fallen," Kit said, "one more time ... greeting and defiance. — Diane Duane

Fair queen, at home there is none like thee,
But over the mountains is Snow-white free,
With seven little dwarfs, who are strange to see;
A thousand times fairer than thou is she.

Queen, thou art not the fairest now;
Snow-white over the mountain's brow
A thousand times fairer is than thou.

Queen, thou art the fairest here,
But not when Snow-white is near;
Over the mountains still is she,
Fairer a thousand times than thee. — Hamilton Wright Mabie

And yonder sits a maiden, The fairest of the fair, With gold in her garment glittering, And she combs her golden hair. — Heinrich Heine

[On Venice:] A wondrous city of fairest carving, reflected in gleaming waters swirled to new patterning by every passing gondola. — Sylvia Pankhurst

Not long, not long my father said
Not long shall you be ours
The Raven King knows all too well
Which are the fairest flowers.
The priest was all too worldly
Though he prayed and rang his bell
The Raven King three candles lit
The priest said it was well
Her arms were all too feeble
Though she claimed to love me so
The Raven King stretched out his hand
She sighed and let me go
The land is all too shallow
It is painted on the sky
And trembles like the wind-shook rain
When the Raven King goes by
For always and for always
I pray remember me
Upon the moors, beneath the stars
With the King's wild company. — Susanna Clarke

Beauty in a woman is a moving thing, Yet sometimes just the patient lack of it Will pierce the heart to deeper poignancies, And, melting, draw a note of tenderness That not the fairest woman could evoke! — Donald Evans

Time's chariot-wheels make their carriage-road in the fairest face. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Quoth the Ocean, Dawn! O fairest, clearest, Touch me with thy golden fingers bland; For I have no smile till thou appearest For the lovely land. — Jean Ingelow

Mirror, mirror, here I stand. Who is the fairest in the land? — Wilhelm Grimm

Vain-glorious man, when fluttering wind does blow
In his light wing's, is lifted up to sky;
The scorn of-knighthood and true chivalry.
To think, without desert of gentle deed
And noble worth, to be advanced high,
Such praise is shame, but honour, virtue's meed,
Doth bear the fairest flower in honourable seed. — Edmund Spenser

From fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beauty's rose might never die, But as the riper should by time decease, His tender heir might bear his memory: — William Shakespeare

Virtue herself is her own fairest reward. — Silius Italicus

That every man, no matter what his color or race or creed might be, and no matter what the crime that he is charged with, each man in those circumstances is entitled to the fairest treatment that anybody can possibly give him. — Gilbert King

The fairest queen that Luna had ever known. For once, she was satisfied. She had Evret. She had her crown. — Marissa Meyer

The Hanlin named his granddaughter Lustrous Jade, for jade was the fairest of stones and possessed five virtues: charity, for its lustre; rectitude, for its translucence; wisdom, for its purity of sound when struck; equity, for its sharp edges that injure none; courage, for it can be broken but not bent. — Bette Bao Lord

The way he looked all of her and saw all of her. Not the fairest. Not the princess. Just the girl she was. He knew her like no one else did, and she'd thought she'd knew everything about him, too. Who he was. What he'd do. — Sarah Cross

Some say an army of horsemen, or infantry,
A fleet of ships is the fairest thing
On the face of the black earth, but I say
It's what one loves. — Sappho

January gray is here, like a sexton by her grave; February bears the bier, march with grief doth howl and rave, and April weeps
but, O ye hours! Follow with May's fairest flowers. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

You're Only the fairest when your fairest to yourself — Gail Carson Levine

Every country-or at least every country that is fit for habitation-has its own rivers; and every river has its own quality; and it is the part of wisdom to know and love as many as you can, seeing each in the fairest possible light, and receiving from each the best that it has to give. — Henry Van Dyke

Now, many of our printers make no scruple of gratifying the malice of individuals by false accusations of the fairest characters among ourselves, augmenting animosity even to the producing of duels; and are, moreover, so indiscreet as to print scurrilous reflections on the government of neighboring states, and even on the conduct of our best national allies, which may be attended with the most pernicious consequences. These things I mention as a caution to young printers, and that they may be encouraged not to pollute their presses and disgrace their profession by such infamous practices, but refuse steadily, as they may see by my example that such a course of conduct will not, on the whole, be injurious to their interests. — Benjamin Franklin

A prudent person, having to do with a designing one, will always distrust most when appearances are fairest. — Samuel Richardson

If heaven send no supplies, The fairest blossom of the garden dies. — William Browne

Sonnet 154

The little Love-god lying once asleep
Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,
Whilst many nymphs that vowed chaste life to keep
Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand
The fairest votary took up that fire
Which many legions of true hearts had warmed;
And so the General of hot desire
Was, sleeping, by a virgin hand disarmed.
This brand she quenched in a cool well by,
Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual,
Growing a bath and healthful remedy
For men diseased; but I, my mistress' thrall,
Came there for cure and this by that I prove,
Love's fire heats water, water cools not love. — William Shakespeare

The cloudless day is richer at its close;
A golden glory settles on the lea;
Soft, stealing shadows hint of cool repose
To mellowing landscape, and to calming sea.
And in that nobler, gentler, lovelier light,
The soul to sweeter, loftier bliss inclines;
Freed form the noonday glare, the favour'd sight
Increasing grace in earth and sky divines.
But ere the purest radiance crowns the green,
Or fairest lustre fills th' expectant grove,
The twilight thickens, and the fleeting scene
Leaves but a hallow'd memory of love! — H.P. Lovecraft

All the greatest blessings create anxiety, and Fortune is never less to be trusted than when it is fairest. — Seneca.

Ale for a tale. That's the fairest trade I know. — Adam Gidwitz

Some say an army of horsemen some an army on foot others say ships laden for war are the fairest things on earth. But I say the fairest sight on this dark earth is the face of the one you love. Nor is it hard to understand: love has humbled the hearts of the proudest queens. And I would rather see you now stepping over my threshold than any soldier greaved in gold or any iron-beaked ship. — Alison Croggon

There is no category of human activity in which the dead do not outnumber the living many times over. Most beautiful children are dead. Most soldiers, most cowards. The fairest women and the most learned men - all are dead. — Gene Wolfe

Albert Einstein, for one, repeatedly expressed these feelings, as in the following celebrated passage (Einstein, 1949, p. 5): The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science ... the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the marvellous structure of reality, together with the single-hearted endeavor to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature. — Fritjof Capra

Fairest and best adorned is she Whose clothing is humility. — James Montgomery

It doesn't matter if you're a Never, Ever, or whatever. In the end, the fairest of them all wins. — Soman Chainani

They still don't want to admit to the world that this isn't the best and the fairest and most equal justice system. And that they are guilty of railroading people into jail. They don't want to, or never will, admit these things. — Leonard Peltier

[On New York City:] Were all America like this fair city, and all, no, only a small proportion of its population like the friends we left there, I should say that the land was the fairest in the world. — Frances Trollope

Scarcely is there any peace so unjust that it is better than even the fairest war. -Vix ulla tam iniqua pax, quin bello vel aequissimo sit potior — Desiderius Erasmus

Love, the fairest among the undying gods, who loosens the limbs of all gods and men,
conquers resolve and prudent counsel within the breast. — Hesiod

Envy, like the worm, is always attracted to the fairest apple — Og Mandino

Fair are the daughters of men, and fairest are those who read. — James K. Morrow

Music is one of the fairest and most glorious gifts of God. — Martin Luther

History is made of empires, and the United States was by far and away the greatest, richest, and fairest empire that had ever dominated the earth. Inevitably, it would fall. Empires always did. But we were lucky, you said. We got to participate in the most fascinating social experiment ever attempted. — Lionel Shriver

Tennis doesn't owe me anything. Tennis is one of the fairest sports. It's given me so many extraordinary feelings. — David Ferrer

But no. She didn't want to be Channary. She didn't want her beauty, not if it came with her cruelty and selfishness as well. — Marissa Meyer

As the caterpillar chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys. — William Blake

I wish I could understand the window in your soul. Mine has none such, but I believe in others'. It is as though mine says to me, You alone are damned. To you the daylight, to you the reality of what appears; for you the dead of Carthage will be dead forever, the pain everywhere the overmastering reality, the skull beneath the fairest skin always visible beneath the blue-veined temples, in the laughing teeth. To you, the lone and level sands covering human endeavor, the ephemerality of laughter. ... Only for others, the reality of human life, the game worthwhile as it is being played. Only for others, any kind of hope. Only for others, the window in the closed room.--or closed galaxy, it makes no difference. — James Tiptree Jr.

Words are naught but wind, and the fairest promises like dreams that take flight with the morning. — Edouard Rene De Laboulaye

We have no right to pick out all that is noblest and fairest in man, to project these qualities into space, and to call them God. We only thus create an ideal figure, a purified, ennobled, 'magnified' Man. — Annie Besant

Im sick and tired of politicians beating up on the IRS. We have the best and fairest tax-collection system in the world. — Charles Rangel

Many of the greatest tyrants on the records of history have begun their reigns in the fairest manner. But the truth is, this unnatural power corrupts both the heart and the understanding. And to prevent the least hope of amendment, a king is ever surrounded by a crowd of infamous flatterers, who find their account in keeping him from the least light of reason, till all ideas of rectitude and justice are utterly erased from his mind. — Edmund Burke

If you asked me, denial was the best stage of grief. If prompted, the Wicked Queen's mirror would definitely say it was the fairest of them all. — Laurel Ulen Curtis

Come here, baby sister," she whispered, and despite the terror twisting inside Levana's stomach, her feet obeyed. "I want to show you something. — Marissa Meyer

O rose! the sweetest blossom,
Of spring the fairest flower,
O rose! the joy of heaven.
The god of love, with roses
His yellow locks adorning,
Dances with the hours and graces. — James Gates Percival

Her name was Hildegardis, and she was acknowledged far and wide as the fairest of maidens. — Friedrich Heinrich Karl De La Motte Fouque

For peace, with justice and honor, is the fairest and most profitable of possessions, but with disgrace and shameful cowardice, it is the most infamous and harmful of all. — Polybius

The Flowers
All the names I know from nurse:
Gardener's garters, Shepherd's purse,
Bachelor's buttons, Lady's smock,
And the Lady Hollyhock.
Fairy places, fairy things,
Fairy woods where the wild bee wings,
Tiny trees for tiny dames
These must all be fairy names!
Tiny woods below whose boughs
Shady fairies weave a house;
Tiny tree-tops, rose or thyme,
Where the braver fairies climb!
Fair are grown-up people's trees,
But the fairest woods are these;
Where, if I were not so tall,
I should live for good and all — Robert Louis Stevenson

I was amongst the virtues like the great Turk in his seraglio of women, and I chose to dwell with that virtue which looked the fairest in my eyes and gave me at that season most pleasure. In short, I made wives of them: I first admired them, then made them my own property, and if they would not submit to my will, I again turned them off and divorced them. — Sarah Fielding

The fairest state of them all, this tranquil and beloved domain - what has it now become? A nursery for Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas. A monstrous breeding farm to supply the sinew to gratify the maw of Eli Whitney's infernal machine, cursed be that blackguard's name! In such a way is our human decency brought down, when we pander all that is in us noble and just to the false god which goes by the vile name of Capital! Oh, Virginia, woe betide thee! Woe, thrice woe, and ever damned in memory be the day when poor black men in chains first trod upon thy sacred strand! — William Styron

Poetry deserves the honor it obtains as the eldest offspring of literature, and the fairest. It is the fruitfulness of many plants growing into one flower and sowing itself over the world in shapes of beauty and color, which differ with the soil that receives and the sun that ripens the seed. In Persia, it comes up the rose of Hafiz; in England, the many-blossomed tree of Shakespeare. — Robert Aris Willmott

Thus it is our daughters leave us,
Those we love, and those who love us!
Just when they have learned to help us,
When we are old and lean upon them,
Comes a youth with flaunting feathers,
With his flute of reeds, a stranger
Wanders piping through the village,
Beckons to the fairest maiden,
And she follows where he leads her,
Leaving all things for the stranger! — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

We didn't put a single boot on the ground, and [Muammar] Gaddafi was deposed. The Libyans turned out for one of the most successful, fairest elections that any Arab country has had. They elected moderate leaders. — Hillary Clinton

I dwell in Possibility
A fairer House than Prose
More numerous of Windows
Superior - for Doors
Of Chambers as the Cedars
Impregnable of Eye
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky
Of Visitors - the fairest
For Occupation - This
The spreading wide of narrow Hands
To gather Paradise - — Emily Dickinson

Love is a conquest! Love is war! — Marissa Meyer

O fairest flower! no sooner blown but blasted, Soft silken primrose fading timelessly. — John Milton

Mine is the Month of Roses; yes, and mine
The Month of Marriages! All pleasant sights
And scents, the fragrance of the blossoming vine,
The foliage of the valleys and the heights.
Mine are the longest days, the loveliest nights;
The mower's scythe makes music to my ear;
I am the mother of all dear delights;
I am the fairest daughter of the year. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

So hand in hand they passed, the loveliest pair that ever since in love's embraces met
Adam, the goodliest man of men since born his sons; the fairest of her daughters Eve. — John Milton

When a beautiful soul harmonizes with a beautiful form, and the two are cast in one mould, that will be the fairest of sights to him who has the eye to contemplate the vision. — Plato

It was an evil doom that set her in his path. For she is a fair maiden, fairest lady of a house of queens. And yet I know not how I should speak of her. When I first looked on her and perceived her unhappiness, it seemed to me that I saw a white flower standing straight and proud, shapely as a lily and yet knew that it was hard, as if wrought by elf-wrights out of steel.
(Aragorn talking of Eowyn, in the Houses of Healing) — J.R.R. Tolkien

But while this sleep, this dream is on ye, move your foot or hand an inch; slip your hold at all; and your identity comes back in horror. Over Descartian vortices you hover. And perhaps, at mid-day, in the fairest weather, with one half-throttled shriek you drop through the transparent air into the summer sea, no more to rise forever. — Herman Melville

As the spring comes on, and the densening outlines of the elm give daily a new design for a Grecian urn, - its hue, first brown with blossoms, then emerald with leaves, - we appreciate the vanishing beauty of the bare boughs. In our favored temperate zone, the trees denude themselves each year, like the goddesses before Paris, that we may see which unadorned loveliness is the fairest. — Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Swift speedy time, feathered with flying hours, Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow. — Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl Of Chesterfield

Is one of the fairest portions of the globe to remain in a state of nature, the haunt of a few wretched savages, when it seems destined by the Creator to give support to a large population and to be the seat of civilization? — William Henry Harrison

By the margin of fair Zurich's waters Dwelt a youth, whose fond heart, night and day, For the fairest of fair Zurich's daughters In a dream of love melted away. — Charles Dance

My appearance was cringe-worthy. If I asked the mirror who it considered to be the fairest of them all, it'd reply with, "Damn girl, it ain't you. You're a hot mess. — R.S. Grey

Occasionally a matrimonial epidemic appears, especially toward spring, devastating society, thinning the ranks of bachelordom, and leaving mothers lamenting for their fairest daughters. — Louisa May Alcott

The fairest and most radically human, coming here to declare that, ultimately, God does not deserve to see. — Jose Saramago

It is wrong to judge revolutions by whether they succeed or fail. Virtually all revolutions fail. Either they fail literally and are reversed by forces of reaction or they fail metaphorically by compromising their lofty goals. The fairest way to assess the impact of a revolution is by the fact that it happens at all. — Michael Goldfarb

Would it make you feel better to know that we all get the same number of hours in a day, days in a year? Some people might be rich and some might be poor, but none of them can buy time. It is one of the fairest systems in the world. — L. H. Cosway

Let Time and Chance combine, combine!
Let Time and Chance combine!
The fairest love from heaven above,
That love of yours was mine,
My Dear!
That love of yours was mine. — Thomas Carlyle

Time is the fairest and toughest judge. — Edgar Quinet

Fairest and dearest, your wrath and anger are more heavy than I can bear; but learn that I cannot tell what you wish me to say without sinning against my honour too grievously. — Marie De France

The fairest things have fleetest end,
Their scent survives their close:
But the rose's scent is bitterness
To her who loved the rose. — Francis Thompson