Hair

For the 1968 Broadway musical, and the 1979 film version of the same, see Hair (musical).

Hair is a collection of biological filaments that grows from follicles on the skin. Most common interest in hair is focused on hair growth, hair types and hair care. Hair is found exclusively in mammals, and is one of the defining characteristics of that class of life.

• Certum est enim: longos esse crines omnibus sed breves sensus mulieribus.
  • One thing is certain: women have long hair, but short wits.
  • Cosmas of Prague, Chronica Boemorum, Chapter IV.

• Judas: Woman, your fine ointment, brand new and expensive
  Could have been saved for the poor
  Why has it been wasted? We could have raised maybe
  Three hundred silver pieces or more
  People who are hungry, people who are starving
  Matter more than your feet and hair.
  
  • Tim Rice Jesus Christ Superstar (1970)

• Her hair reminds of a warm, safe place
  Where as a child I'd hide,
  And wait for the thunder and the rain
  To quietly pass me by.
  • Axl Rose, "Sweet Child o' Mine", Appetite for Destruction (1987).

• I find that the whiter my hair becomes the more ready people are to believe what I say.
  • Bertrand Russell, Russell Speaks His Mind (1960), p. 80

• “Change it [white hair] with something but avoid black” (5244)... “The Jews and Christians do not dye their hair, so oppose them” (5245).
  • Quotes about rules on hair coloring from the Sahih Muslim. Quoted from Ram Swarup, Understanding Islam through Hadis, 1983. [1]

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 347-49.

• And from that luckless hour my tyrant fair
  Has led and turned me by a single hair.
  • Robert Bland, Anthology (Ed. 1813), p. 20.

• His hair stood upright like porcupine quills.
  • Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron, Fifth Day, Nov. 8.

• Dear, dead women, with such hair, too—what's become of all the gold
  Used to hang and brush their bosoms?
  • Robert Browning, Men and Women, A Toccata of Galuppi's, Stanza 15.

• And though it be a two-foot trout,
  'Tis with a single hair pulled out.
  • Samuel Butler, Hudibras.

• Those curious locks so aptly twin'd,
  Whose every hair a soul doth bind.
  • Thomas Carew, To A. L., Persuasions to Love, line 37.

• Stultum est in luctu capillum sibi evellere, quasi calvitio mæror levaretur.
  • It is foolish to pluck out one's hair for sorrow, as if grief could be assuaged by baldness.
  • Cicero, Tusculanarum Disputationum, III. 26.

• Within the midnight of her hair,
  Half-hidden in its deepest deeps.
  • Barry Cornwall, Pearl Wearers.

• An harmless flaming meteor shone for hair,
  And fell adown his shoulders with loose care.
  • Abraham Cowley, Davideis, Book II, line 803.

• His head,
  Not yet by time completely silver'd o'er,
  Bespoke him past the bounds of freakish youth,
  But strong for service still, and unimpair'd.
  • William Cowper, The Task (1785), Book II. The Timepiece, line 702.

• Tresses, that wear
  Jewels, but to declare
  How much themselves more precious are.
  • Richard Crashaw, Wishes to his (supposed) Mistress.

• She knows her man, and when you rant and swear,
  Can draw you to her with a single hair.
  • John Dryden, Persius, Satire V, line 246.

• When you see fair hair
  Be pitiful.
  • George Eliot, The Spanish Gypsy (1868), Book IV.

• Bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.
  • Genesis, XIII. 38.

• Beware of her fair hair, for she excels
  All women in the magic of her locks;
  And when she winds them round a young man's neck,
  She will not ever set him free again.
  • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Scenes from Faust, scene The Hartz Mountain, line 335. Shelley's translation.

• Loose his beard, and hoary hair
  Stream'd, like a meteor, to the troubled air.
  • Thomas Gray, The Bard, I. 2, line 5.

• It was brown with a golden gloss, Janette,
  It was finer than silk of the floss, my pet;
  'Twas a beautiful mist falling down to your wrist,
  'Twas a thing to be braided, and jewelled, and kissed—
  'Twas the loveliest hair in the world, my pet.
  • Charles G. Halpine (Miles O'Reilly), Janette's Hair.

• And yonder sits a maiden,
  The fairest of the fair,
  With gold in her garment glittering,
  And she combs her golden hair.
  • Heinrich Heine, The Lorelei, Stanza 3.

• I pray thee let me and my fellow have
  A hair of the dog that bit us last night.
  • John Heywood, Proverbs, Part I, Chapter XI, line 424.

• But she is vanish'd to her shady home
  Under the deep, inscrutable; and there
  Weeps in a midnight made of her own hair.
  • Thomas Hood, Hero and Leander, 116.

• Cui flavam religas comam
  Simplex munditiis?
  • For whom do you bind your hair, plain in your neatness?
  • Horace, Carmina, I. 5. 4. Melton's translation.

• One hair of a woman can draw more than a hundred pair of oxen.
  • James Howell, Familiar Letters, Book 2. Sect. 4. To T. D., Esq.

• The little wind that hardly shook
  The silver of the sleeping brook
  Blew the gold hair about her eyes,—
  A mystery of mysteries.
  So he must often pause, and stoop,
  And all the wanton ringlets loop
  Behind her dainty ear—emprise
  Of slow event and many sighs.
  • W. D. Howells, Through the Meadow.

• My mother bids me bind my hair
  With bands of rosy hue,
  Tie up my sleeves with ribbands rare,
  And lace my bodice blue;
  For why, she cries, sit still and weep,
  While others dance and play?
  Alas, I scarce can go or creep,
  While Rubin is away.
  • Anne Hunter, My Mother Bids Me Bind My Hair.

• Though time has touched it in his flight,
  And changed the auburn hair to white.
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Christus, The Golden Legend (1872), Part IV, line 388.

• Her cap of velvet could not hold
  The tresses of her hair of gold,
  That flowed and floated like the stream.
  And fell in masses down her neck.
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Christus, The Golden Legend (1872), Part VI, line 375.

• You manufacture, with the aid of unguents, a false head of hair, and your bald and dirty skull is covered with dyed locks. There is no need to have a hairdresser for your head. A sponge, Phæbus, would do the business better.
  • Martial, Epigrams (c. 80-104 AD), Book VI, Epigram 57.

• You collect your straggling hairs on each side, Marinus, endeavoring to conceal the vast expanse of your shining bald pate by the locks which still grow on your temples. But the hairs disperse, and return to their own place with every gust of wind; flanking your bare poll on either side with crude tufts. We might imagine we saw Hermeros of Cydas standing between Speudophorus and Telesphorus. Why not confess yourself an old man? Be content to seem what you really are, and let the barber shave off the rest of your hair. There is nothing more contemptible than a bald man who pretends to have hair.
  • Martial, Epigrams (c. 80-104 AD), Book X, Epigram 83.

• The very hairs of your head are all numbered.
  • Matthew. X. 30.

• Munditiis capimur: non sine lege capillis.
  • We are charmed by neatness of person; let not thy hair be out of order.
  • Ovid, Ars Amatoria, III. 133.

• Her head was bare;
  But for her native ornament of hair;
  Which in a simple knot was tied above,
  Sweet negligence, unheeded bait of love!
  • Ovid, Metamorphoses, Meleager and Atalanta, line 68. Dryden's translation.

• Fair tresses man's imperial race insnare,
  And beauty draws us with a single hair.
  • Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock (1712), Canto II, line 27.

• Hoary whiskers and a forky beard.
  • Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock (1712), Canto III, line 37.

• Then cease, bright nymph! to mourn thy ravish'd hair
  Which adds new glory to the shining sphere;
  Not all the tresses that fair head can boast
  Shall draw such envy as the lock you lost,
  For after all the murders of your eye,
  When, after millions slain, yourself shall die;
  When those fair suns shall set, as set they must,
  And all those tresses shall be laid in dust,
  This Lock the Muse shall consecrate to fame,
  And 'midst the stars inscribe Belinda's name.
  • Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock (1712), Canto V. Last lines.

• Ere on thy chin the springing beard began
  To spread a doubtful down, and promise man.
  • Matthew Prior, An Ode to the Memory of the Honourable Colonel George Villiers, line 5.

• The hoary beard is a crown of glory if it be found in the way of righteousness.
  • Proverbs, XVI. 31.

• Tarry at Jericho until your beards be grown.
  • II Samuel. X. 5.

• Golden hair, like sunlight streaming
  On the marble of her shoulder.
  • John Godfrey Saxe, The Lover's Vision, Stanza 3.

• His hair is of a good colour.
  An excellent colour; your chestnut was ever the only colour.
  • William Shakespeare, As You Like It (c.1599-1600), Act III, scene 4, line 11.

• Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
  And each particular hair to stand an-end,
  Like quills upon the fretful porpentine.
  • William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act I, scene 5, line 15.

• And his chin new reap'd,
  Show'd like a stubble-land at harvest-home.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I (c. 1597), Act I, scene 3, line 34.

• How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!
  • William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part II (c. 1597-99), Act V, scene 5, line 52.

• Comb down his hair; look, look! it stands upright.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part II (c. 1590-91), Act III, scene 3, line 15.

• Bind up those tresses. O, what love I note
  In the fair multitude of those her hairs!
  Where but by chance a silver drop hath fallen,
  Even to that drop ten thousand wiry friends
  Do glue themselves in sociable grief,
  Like true, inseparable, faithful loves,
  Sticking together in calamity.
  • William Shakespeare, King John (1598), Act III, scene 4, line 61.

• And her sunny locks
  Hang on her temples like a golden fleece.
  • William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (late 1590s), Act I, scene 1, line 169.

• What a beard hast thou got! thou hast got more hair on thy chin than Dobbin my fill-horse has on his tail.
  • William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (late 1590s), Act II, scene 2, line 99.

• Alas, poor chin! many a wart is richer.
  • William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida (c. 1602), Act I, scene 2, line 154.

• Her hair is auburn, mine is perfect yellow:
  If that be all the difference in his love,
  I'll get me such a colour'd periwig.
  • William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1590s), Act IV, scene 4, line 194.

• Thy fair hair my heart enchained.
  • Sir Philip Sidney, Neapolitan Villanell.

• Her long loose yellow locks lyke golden wyre,
  Sprinckled with perle, and perling flowres atweene,
  Doe lyke a golden mantle her attyre.
  • Edmund Spenser, Epithalamion, Stanza 9.

• Ah, thy beautiful hair! so was it once braided for me, for me;
  Now for death is it crowned, only for death, lover and lord of thee.
  • Algernon Charles Swinburne, Choriambics, Stanza 5.

• But, rising up,
  Robed in the long night of her deep hair, so
  To the open window moved.
  • Alfred Tennyson, Princess.

• The Father of Heaven.
  Spin, daughter Mary, spin,
  Twirl your wheel with silver din;
  Spin, daughter Mary, spin,
  Spin a tress for Viola.
  • Francis Thompson, The Making of Viola, Stanza 1.

• Come let me pluck that silver hair
  Which 'mid thy clustering curls I see;
  The withering type of time or care
  Has nothing, sure, to do with thee.
  • Alaric Alex Watts, The Grey Hair.

• Her hair is bound with myrtle leaves,
  (Green leaves upon her golden hair!)
  Green grasses through the yellow sheaves
  Of Autumn corn are not more fair.
  • Oscar Wilde, La Bella Donna delta mia Mente.