Blue eyes

But my deepest and most secret love belongs to the fair-haired and the blue-eyed. ~ Thomas Mann

Blue eyes, also called fair eyes or grey eyes in older literature, is a human eye colour. Unlike brown or black eyes, blue eyes are caused by low amounts of melanin in the stroma of the iris, as with green eyes.

Quotes

Prose

He was eighty years old now, with a bloom on his cheeks like an autumn pippin and two limpid blue eyes that looked straight into yours and, if you had any reverence at all, made the tears well involuntarily at the sight of such gentle beauty. ~ Compton Mackenzie

• He was eighty years old now, with a bloom on his cheeks like an autumn pippin and two limpid blue eyes that looked straight into yours and, if you had any reverence at all, made the tears well involuntarily at the sight of such gentle beauty.
  • Compton Mackenzie, The Passionate Elopement (1911)

• But my deepest and most secret love belongs to the fair-haired and the blue-eyed.
  • Thomas Mann, Tonio Kröger (1903)

• The heroine of almost every fairy tale in the world is blue-eyed, as a sign that she is the true, good, and lovable maiden who is the object and reward of the quest and labour of the prince.
  • Ellen Conroy, The Symbolism of Colour (1921), p. 32

• Conan's eyes blazed and he started as if stung; the guards tensed, grasping their bills, then relaxed as he dropped his head suddenly, as if in sullen resignation, and not even Demetrio could tell that he was watching them from under his heavy black brows, with eyes that were slits of blue bale-fire.
  • Robert E. Howard, "The God in the Bowl", Space Science Fiction (September 1952)

• Her eyes were likewise neither wholly blue nor wholly grey, but of shifting colors and dancing lights and clouds of colors he could not define.
  • Robert E. Howard, "The Frost-Giant's Daughter" ("The Gods of the North")

• Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated.
  • Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea (1952)

• Brownish color and black eyes are more closely related to the sublime, blue eyes and blond color to the beautiful.
  • I Kant, Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime (1764)

• Those blue, blue eyes, icy blue, looking back at me, They're pretty powerful, you know, those eyes, pretty beautiful, too.
  • Lucy Christopher, Stolen (2009)

• Those big blue eyes were swimming, and he was afraid that if the first tear fell, he would break and carry her off anywhere she wanted to go.
  • Nora Roberts, Daring to Dream (1996)

• Further, the consideration as to the complexion is very decided. Blondes prefer dark persons, or brunettes ; but the latter seldom prefer the former. The reason is, that fair hair and blue eyes are in themselves a variation from the type, almost an abnormity, analogous to white mice, or at least to grey horses. In no part of the world, not even in the vicinity of the pole, are they indigenous, except in Europe, and are clearly of Scandinavian origin.
  • Arthur Schopenhauer "The World As Will And Idea Vol II"

• The eyes are crystal blue, I immediately crave, a shade that makes my heart beat a little bit faster, almost as if I recognize it...It's the most perfect blue I've ever seen. Even from this distance, his eyes are simply remarkable.”
  • Kiersten White, The Chaos of Stars (2013)

Verse

• Asclēpias, child of passion, bright eyes like the calm sea’s blue,
  You lure to sail for Cythēra whoever looks on you.
  • Meleager of Gadara. Anth. Pal. v. 156. "The Siren".
    Translated by F. L. Lucas, Greek Poetry for Everyman (1951), p. 352

• His rode was reed, his eyen greye as goos;
  • Geoffrey Chaucer, "The Milleres Tale"

• The smylyng mouth and laughyng eyen gray
  • Charles d'Orléans, Rondel

• Her eyen gray and stepe
  Causeth myne hert to lepe;
  • John Skelton, "The Commendacions of maystres Jane Scrope",
    The Boke of Phyllyp Sparrowe (1545)

• Her eyes, faire eyes, like to the purest lights
  That animate the Sunne, or cheere the day,
  In whom the shining Sun-beames brightly play
  Whiles fancie dooth on them divine delights.
  • Robert Greene, Menaphon (1589)

• Her eyes are Saphires set in snow,
  Refining heaven by everie winke;
  The Gods doo feare when as they glow,
  And I doo tremble when I thinke.
    Heigh ho, would she were mine.
  • Thomas Lodge, Rosalynde (2nd ed., 1592)
  • For "Refining", some editions give "Resembling"

• Betwixt two ridges of ploughed land sat Wat,
  Whose body, pressed to th’earth, lay close and squat.
  His nose upon his two fore-feet close lies,
  Glaring obliquely with his great grey eyes.
  • The Duchess of Newcastle, "The Hunting of the Hare",
    Poems and Fancies (1653, 1664, 1668)

• Here’s to the girl with a pair of blue eyes,
    And here’s to the nymph with but one, sir.
  • Richard Sheridan, The School for Scandal (1777), 3:3

• Blue! ’Tis the life of heaven,—the domain
    Of Cynthia,—the wide palace of the sun,—
  The tent of Hesperus, and all his train,—
    The bosom of clouds, gold, gray, and dun.
  Blue! ’Tis the life of waters—ocean
    And all its vassal streams: pools numberless
  May rage, and foam, and fret, but never can
    Subside, if not to dark-blue nativeness.
  Blue! Gentle cousin of the forest-green,
    Married to green in all the sweetest flowers—
  Forget-me-not,—the blue-bell,—and, that queen
    Of secrecy, the violet: what strange powers
  Hast thou, as a mere shadow! But how great,
    When in an Eye thou art alive with fate!
  • John Keats, Answer to a Sonnet Ending Thus—
      "Dark eyes are dearer far
      Than those that made the hyacinthine bell."
    By J. H. Reynolds.

• Her blue affrayèd eyes wide open shone:
  • John Keats, The Eve of St. Agnes (1820)

• Nort’s grey eyes were unco’ gleg,
  • William Bell Scott, "The Witch’s Ballad" (1875)

• Like violets pale i’ the Spring o’ the year
    Came my Love’s sad eyes to my youth;
  Wan and dim with many a tear,
    But the sweeter for that in sooth:
          Wet and dim,
          Tender and true,
          Violet eyes
          Of the sweetest blue.
  Like pansies dark i’ the June o’ the year
    Grow my Love’s glad eyes to my prime;
  Rich with the purple splendour clear
    Of their thoughtful bliss sublime:
          Deep and dark,
          Solemn and true,
          Pansy eyes
          Of the noblest blue.
  • James Thomson ("Bysshe Vanolis"), "Sunday up the River: an Idyll of Cockaigne", no. 9
  • Fraser's Magazine (October 1869)

• The dropping grey-beard with the cold blue eye,
  • John Masefield, "The Haunted", Collected Poems (1924)

• No light, no light in the blue Polish eye.
  • Anthony Hecht, "More Light! More Light!"
  • Collected Earlier Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 1990)

• No one knows what it's like
  To be the bad man
  To be the sad man
  Behind blue eyes
  • The Who, Lyrics from Behind Blue Eyes