Eyes are not just for seeing! Think about it - we talk about eyes, write about them, and even have special sayings and expressions about eyes. We have collected a number of idioms and quotes about eyes to show how prevalent eyes are in our culture and that they truly have a ‘language’ of their own. See how many things you recognize or use in the lists below.


Sayings (Idioms) About Eyes

• A sight for sore eyes
• An eye for an eye
• Another pair of eyes to review something
• Apple of my eye
• Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
• Bette Davis eyes
• Bird’s eye view
• Can’t take my eyes off of you
• Can do it with my eyes closed
• Couldn’t believe my eyes
• Cry my eyes out
• Didn’t bat an eye
• Dollar signs in the eyes
• Easy on the eye
• Eyes are the windows to the soul
• Eyes in the back of one’s head
• Eyes like a hawk
• Eyes like saucers
• Eye of the hurricane
• Eye of the storm
• Eyes popped out of my head
• Eyes were bigger than my stomach
• Feast your eyes on
• For your eyes only
• Get some shut-eye
• Give my eye teeth for
• Give the evil eye
• Green-eyed monster
• Has an eye for…
• Here’s mud in your eye!
• His eye is on the sparrow
• In a pig’s eye
• In the blink of an eye
• In the public eye
• In the twinkling of an eye
• In your mind’s eye
• Keep an eye on
• Keep an eye out for
• Keep your eye on the ball
• Keep your eyes open
• Keep your eyes peeled
• Look me in the eye and tell me that
• Look into my eyes
• More than meets the eye
• Naked eye
• Not a dry eye in the place
• Private eye
• Pull the wool over someone’s eyes
• Red-eye flight
• See eye to eye
• Seeing is not always believing
• Set your eyes on
• Stars in her eyes
• Turn a blind eye
• Watch with an eagle eye
• When Irish eyes are smiling
• With your eyes wide open

Quotes about Eyes

1. “Few people get weak eyes from looking on the bright side.”
   • Anonymous
2. “The night has a thousand eyes, and the day but one; yet the light of the bright world dies with the dying sun. The mind has a thousand eyes, and the heart but one; yet the light of a whole life dies when love is done.”
   • Francis William Bourdillon
3. “Weak eyes are fondest of glittering objects.”
   • Thomas Carlyle
4. "What a curious workmanship is that of the eye, which is in the body, as the sun in the world; set in the head as in a watch-tower, having the softest nerves for receiving the greater multitude of spirits necessary for the act of vision!”
   • Stephen Charnock
5. “The soul would have no rainbow had the eye no tears.”
   • John Vance Cheney
6. “There is a road from the eye to the heart that does not go through the intellect.”
   • G.K. Chesterton
7. “The eyes are the mirror of the soul.”
   • Cicero, 106-43 B.C./Regiment of Life, 1545/French and Yiddish Proverb
8. “The love light in her eyes.”
   • Hartley Coleridge
9. “The eyes see only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.”
   • Robertson Davies, Canadian Journalist
10. “You never know how you look through other people’s eyes.”
    • Ralph Waldo Emerson
11. “The eye of the master will do more work than both of his hands.”
    • Benjamin Franklin
12. “Originality is simply a pair of fresh eyes.”
    • Thomas Higginson
13. “The eye sees a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination awake.”
    • Leonardo da Vinci
14. “Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?”
    • Groucho Marx
15. “The eyes are the gateway to the soul.”
    • Herman Melville
16. “The sight of you is good for sore eyes.”
    • Jonathan Swift, Polite Conversation (dialogue I)
17. “The eyes are not responsible when the mind does the seeing.”
    • Publilius Syrus
18. “You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.”
    • Mark Twain