“Is she not more than painting can express,
Or youthful poets fancy when they love?”

—  Nicholas Rowe , The Fair Penitent

Act iii, scene 1.
The Fair Penitent (1703)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Is she not more than painting can express, Or youthful poets fancy when they love?" by Nicholas Rowe?
Nicholas Rowe photo
Nicholas Rowe 7
English poet, dramatist 1674–1718

Related quotes

Harry Chapin photo

“She sings the songs without words
Songs that sailors, and blind men, and beggars have heard
She knows more of love than the poets can say
And her eyes are for something that won't go away.”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

She Sings Songs Without Words
Song lyrics, Verities & Balderdash (1974)

Charlie Chaplin photo

“Perfect love is the most beautiful of all frustrations because it is more than one can express.”

Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) British comic actor and filmmaker

“One never knows whether the Poet is speaking fact, fancy, or allegory. If fancy is clever enough, I doubt that the Poet would admit a difference between fancy and fact.”

Walter M. Miller, Jr. book A Canticle for Leibowitz

Ch 21
A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959), Fiat Lux

Leigh Hunt photo

“Fishes do not roar; they cannot express any sound of suffering; and therefore the angler chooses to think they do not suffer, more than it is convenient for him to fancy.”

Leigh Hunt (1784–1859) English critic, essayist, poet and writer

Revised edition, London, Smith, Elder & Co., 1889, p. 114
The Town: Its Memorable Characters and Events (1848)
Context: Fishes do not roar; they cannot express any sound of suffering; and therefore the angler chooses to think they do not suffer, more than it is convenient for him to fancy. Now it is a poor sport that depends for its existence on the want of a voice in the sufferer, and of imagination in the sportsman.

“I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;
Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:
The shapes a bright container can contain!”

Theodore Roethke (1908–1963) American poet

"I Knew a Woman," ll. 1 - 4
Words for the Wind (1958)

“Sweet and lovely, sweeter than the roses in May,
And she loves me, there is nothing more I can say.”

Gus Arnheim (1897–1955) American musician

Song Sweet and Lovely

Jonathan Safran Foer photo

“This is love, she thought, isn't it? When you notice someone's absence and hate that absence more than anything? More, even, than you love his presence?”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

Auguste Rodin photo

“Painting, literature, music, are more closely allied than the public usually admit. They are merely different means of expression.”

Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) French sculptor

RODIN, AUGUSTE. L'Art. Entretiens réunis par Paul Gsell, 1911

Charles Kingsley photo

“Are gods more ruthless than mortals?
Have they no mercy for youth? no love for the souls who have loved them?”

Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) English clergyman, historian and novelist

Andromeda, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Attributed

Vladimir Nabokov photo

“I know more than I can express in words, and the little I can express would not have been expressed, had I not known more.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Strong Opinions

Source: Strong Opinions (1973), p. 45
Context: To be quite candid — and what I am going to say now is something I have never said before, and I hope that it provokes a salutary chill — I know more than I can express in words, and the little I can express would not have been expressed, had I not known more.

Related topics