The phrase “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is most widely credited to the 19th‑century Irish author Margaret Wolfe Hungerford, who used it in her 1878 novel Molly Bawn. Earlier writers like Plato, Shakespeare, Benjamin Franklin, and David Hume expressed similar ideas, but not in this exact wording.

Who first said it?

  • The earliest known use of the exact modern phrase appears in Molly Bawn (1878), where Hungerford writes that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
  • Because of this, dictionaries and phrase-origin references generally attribute the quote to Margaret Wolfe Hungerford.

Older roots of the idea

Long before Hungerford, many thinkers said similar things about beauty being subjective.

  • In the 18th century, philosopher David Hume wrote that “Beauty in things exists merely in the mind which contemplates them,” clearly echoing the same concept.
  • Benjamin Franklin, in Poor Richard’s Almanack (1741), also linked beauty to opinion rather than objective fact.

What the quote means

  • The saying argues that beauty is not an absolute quality but depends on the viewer’s perspective and experience.
  • In modern use, people often invoke it to defend unconventional tastes in art, appearance, or relationships, emphasizing that personal preference matters more than societal standards.

TL;DR: The idea is ancient, but the exact phrase “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is generally credited to Margaret Wolfe Hungerford in 1878.

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