Sighs

Sighs are especially audible, single exhalations of air out of the mouth or nose, that humans use to communicate emotion. It often arises from a negative emotion, such as dismay, dissatisfaction, boredom, or futility. A sigh can also arise from positive emotions such as relief, particularly in response to some negative situation ending or being avoided.

Quotes

• Sigh'd and look'd, and sigh'd again.
  • John Dryden, Alexander's Feast (1697), line 120.

• My soul has rest, sweet sigh! alone in thee.
  • Petrarch, To Laura in Death (c. 1348-1350), Sonnet LIV, line 14.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 707.

• Sighed and wept and said no more.
  • Isle of Ladies. Erroneously attributed to Chaucer as Dream, line 931.

• Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.
  • Thomas Gray, Elegy in a Country Churchyard, Stanza 20.

• To sigh, yet feel no pain.
  • Thomas Moore, Songs from M. P.; or, The Blue Stocking.

• Oh, if you knew the pensive pleasure
  That fills my bosom when I sigh,
  You would not rob me of a treasure
  Monarchs are too poor to buy.
  • Samuel Rogers, To ——, Stanza 2.

• Yet sighes, deare sighes, indeede true friends you are
  That do not leave your left friend at the wurst,
  But, as you with my breast, I oft have nurst
  So, gratefull now, you waite upon my care.
  • Sir Philip Sidney, Sighes.

• * * Sighs
  Which perfect Joy, perplexed for utterance,
  Stole from her sister Sorrow.
  • Alfred Tennyson, The Gardener's Daughter, line 249.