Quotes by Lord Byron (Page 2 of 3)

Admire, exult, despise, laugh, weep for here There is such matter for all feelings: Man! Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear.

Tis strange,-but true; for truth is always strange; Stranger than fiction: if it could be told, How much would novels gain by the exchange! How differently the world would men behold!

Whenever I meet with anything agreeable in this world it surprises me so much -- and pleases me so much (when my passions are not interested in one way or the other) that I go on wondering for a week to come.

A legal broom's a moral chimney-sweeper, And that's the reason he himself's so dirty.

The devil hath not, in all his quiver's choice, An arrow for the heart like a sweet voice.

Earth! render back from out thy breast A remnant of our Spartan dead! Of the three hundred grant but three, To make a new Thermopylæ!

Why do they call me misanthrope? Because They hate me, not I them.

Do proper homage to thine idol's eyes; But no too humbly, or she will despise Thee and thy suit, though told in moving tropes: Disguise even tenderness if thou art wise.

But there are wanderers o'er Eternity Whose bark drives on and on, and anchor'd ne'er shall be.

The Christian has greatly the advantage of the unbeliever, having everything to gain and nothing to lose.

O Gold! I still prefer thee unto paper, which makes bank credit like a bark of vapour.

All tragedies are finished by a death, All comedies are ended by a marriage.

My days are in the yellow leaf; The flowers and fruits of love are gone; The worm, the canker, and the grief, Are mine alone!

Good work and joyous play go hand in hand. When play stops, old age begins. Play keeps you from taking life too seriously.

Of all the horrid, hideous notes of woe,
Sadder than owl-songs or the midnight blast;
Is that portentous phrase, I told you so.

Be hypocritical, be cautious, be not what you seem but always what you see.

Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch's wife, He would have written sonnets all his life?.

The basis of your religion is injustice. The Son of God the pure, the immaculate, the innocent, is sacrificed for the guilty. This proves his heroism, but no more does away with man's sin than a school boy's volunteering to be flogged for another would exculpate a dunce from negligence.

Time strips our illusions of their hue, And one by one in turn, some grand mistake Casts off its bright skin yearly like the snake.

This is the age of oddities let loose.

I am as comfortless as a pilgrim with peas in his shoes -- and as cold as Charity, Chastity or any other Virtue.

I can't but say it is an awkward sight To see one's native land receding through The growing waters; it unmans one quite, Especially when life is rather new.

There is music in all things, if men had ears.

From the mingled strength of shade and light A new creation rises to my sight, Such heav'nly figures from his pencil flow, So warm with light his blended colors glow... . The glowing portraits, fresh from life, that bring Home to our hearts the truth from which they spring.

The reason that adulation is not displeasing is that, though untrue, it shows one to be of consequence enough, in one way or other, to induce people to lie.

By Heaven! it is a splendid sight to see For one who hath no friend, no brother there.

But beef is rare within these oxless isles; Goat's flesh there is, no doubt, and kid, and mutton; And, when a holiday upon them smiles, A joint upon their barbarous spits they put on.

Scion of chiefs and monarchs, where art thou? Fond hope of many nations, art thou dead? Could not the grave forget thee, and lay low Some less majestic, less beloved head?

Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains; They crown'd him long ago On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds, With a diadem of snow.

I deny nothing, but doubt everything.

Sweet is old wine in bottles, ale in barrels.

Few things surpass old wine; and they may preach Who please, the more because they preach in vain.

I am the very slave of circumstance And impulse borne away with every breath! Misplaced upon the throne misplaced in life. I know not what I could have been, but feel I am not what I should be let it end.

Man's conscience is the oracle of God.

He scratched his ear, the infallible resource to which embarrassed people have recourse.

You should have a softer pillow than my heart.

There is pleasure in the pathless woods.

Tis the perception of the beautiful, A fine extension of the faculties, Platonic, universal, wonderful, Drawn from the stars, and filtered through the skies, Without which life would be extremely dull.

I've seen your stormy seas and stormy women, And pity lovers rather more than seamen.

Physicians mend or end us, Secundum artem; but although we sneer -- In health -- when ill we call them to attend us, Without the least propensity to jeer.

What a strange thing is man! And what a stranger is woman.

On the ear Drops the light drip of the suspended oar.

A sort of hostile transaction, very necessary to keep the world going, but by no means a sinecure to the parties concerned.

Exhausting thought, And hiving wisdom with each studious year.

It has been said that the immortality of the soul is a grand peut-tre -but still it is a grand one. Everybody clings to it -the stupidest, and dullest, and wickedest of human bipeds is still persuaded that he is immortal.

The art of angling, the cruelest, the coldest and the stupidest of pretended sports.

Yet truth will sometimes lend her noblest fires, And decorate the verse herself inspires: This fact, in virtue's name, let Crabbe attest,- Though Nature's sternest painter, yet the best.

What opposite discoveries we have seen! (Signs of true genius, and of empty pockets.) One makes new noses, one a guillotine, One breaks your bones, one sets them in their sockets; But vaccination certainly has been A kind antithesis to Congreve's rockets.

The very best of vineyards is the cellar.

Still from the fount of joy's delicious springs Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings.

He had kept The whiteness of his soul, and thus men o'er him wept.

With flowing tail and flying mane,

Wide nostrils never stretched by pain,

Mouth bloodless to bit or rein,

And feet that iron never shod,

And flanks unscar'd by spur or rod,

A thousand horses -- the wild -- the free -

Like waves that follow o'er the sea,

Came thickly thundering on.

I have imbibed such a love for money that I keep some sequins in a drawer to count, and cry over them once a week.

As falls the dew on quenchless sands, blood only serves to wash ambition's hands.

Champagne with its foaming whirls As white as Cleopatra's pearls.

Life is too short for chess.

Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell Then shriek'd the timid, and stood still the brave, Then some leap'd overboard with fearful yell, As eager to anticipate their grave.

I only know we loved in vain; I only feel-farewell! farewell!

Till taught by pain, Men really know not what good water's worth.

On with the dance! let joy be unconfin'd No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet To chase the Glowing Hours with Flying feet.

My boat is on the shore, And my bark is on the sea.

I am about to be married, and am of course in all the misery of a man in pursuit of happiness.

'Twas strange that one so young should thus concern His brain about the action of the sky; If you think 'twas philosophy that this did, I can't help thinking puberty assisted.

If we must have a tyrant, let him at least be a gentleman who has been bred to the business, and let us fall by the axe and not by the butcher's cleaver.

History -- the devil's scripture.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean.

What makes a regiment of soldiers a more noble object of view than the same mass of mob? Their arms, their dresses, their banners, and the art and artificial symmetry of their position and movements.

Keep thy smooth words and juggling homilies for those who know thee not.

A good coach encourages the same type of resilience in the people they work with. They encourage them to take risks. If the risk results in failure, they help all people to learn from the mistake and then go on to try another way.

Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter, sermons and soda water the day after.

I should, many a good day, have blown my brains out, but for the recollection that it would have given pleasure to my mother-in-law.

America is a model of force and freedom and moderation -- with all the coarseness and rudeness of its people.

And life 's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.

I live not in myself, but I become Portion of that around me: and to me High mountains are a feeling, but the hum of human cities torture.

Man marks the earth with ruin -- his control stops with the shore.

A man must serve his time to every trade, Save censure-critics all are ready made. Take hackney'd jokes from Miller, got by rote With just enough learning to misquote.

A thirst for gold, The beggar's vice, which can but overwhelm The meanest hearts.

Since Eve ate the apple, much depends on dinner.

A drop of ink may make a million think.

To chase the glowing hours with flying feet.

Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime? Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle, Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime!

Switzerland is a curst, selfish, swinish country of brutes, placed in the most romantic region of the world.

Glory, like the phoenix 'midst her fires, Exhales her odours, blazes, and expires.

When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall; And when Rome falls -- the World.

Gone, glimmering through the dream of things that were.

Many are poets, but without the name;For what is Poesy but to createFrom overfeeling Good or Ill; and aimAt an external life beyond our fate,And be the new Prometheus of new men,Bestowing fire from Heaven, and then, too late,Finding the pleasure given repaid with pain.

A quiet conscience makes one so serene.

Without a friend, what were humanity,
To hunt our errors up with a good grace?
Consoling us with--'Would you had thought twice!
Ah, if you had but follow'd my advice!

Yet he was jealous, though he did not show it, For jealousy dislikes the world to know it.

Of all tales 'tis the saddest -- and more sad, Because it makes us smile.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more.

The English winter -- ending in July to recommence in August.

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes.

In the desert a fountain is springing, In the wide waste there still is a tree, And a bird in the solitude singing, Which speaks to my spirit of thee.

Time! The corrector when our judgments err.

Eat, drink and love… the rest is not worth a nickel.

In England the only homage which they pay to Virtue -- is hypocrisy.

In solitude, where we are least alone.

Let none think to fly the danger for soon or late love is his own avenger.

For in itself a thought, a slumbering thought, is capable of years, and curdles a long life into one hour.

To have joy one must share it. Happiness was born a twin.

'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print. A book's a book, although there's nothing in 't.

This man is freed from servile bands, Of hope to rise, or fear to fall; Lord of himself, though not of lands, And leaving nothing, yet hath all.

A thousand years may scare form a state. An hour may lay it in ruins.

Prolonged endurance tames the bold.

I would rather have a nod from an American, than a snuff-box from an emperor.

Women hate everything which strips off the tinsel of sentiment, and they are right, or it would rob them of their weapons.

Though I love my country, I do not love my countrymen.

I shall soon be six-and-twenty. Is there anything in the future that can possibly console us for not being always twenty-five?

We are all selfish and I no more trust myself than others with a good motive.

Folly loves the martyrdom of fame.

He who is only just is cruel. Who on earth could live were all judged justly?

'Tis very certain the desire of life prolongs it.

What is the worst of woes that wait on age? What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow? To view each loved one blotted from life's page, And be alone on earth, as I am now.

There are four questions of value in life, Don Octavio. What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same. Only love.

It is very iniquitous to make me pay my debts, you have no idea of the pain it gives one.

What a strange thing man is; and what a stranger thing woman.

Though sages may pour out their wisdom's treasure, there is no sterner moralist than pleasure.

For what were all these country patriots born? To hunt, and vote, and raise the price of corn?

If I don't write to empty my mind, I go mad.

Man, being reasonable, must get drunk; the best of life is but intoxication.

I have no consistency, except in politics; and that probably arises from my indifference to the subject altogether.

Men think highly of those who rise rapidly in the world; whereas nothing rises quicker than dust, straw, and feathers.

The fact is that my wife if she had common sense would have more power over me than any other whatsoever, for my heart always alights upon the nearest perch.

I cannot help thinking that the menace of Hell makes as many devils as the severe penal codes of inhuman humanity make villains.

It is odd but agitation or contest of any kind gives a rebound to my spirits and sets me up for a time.

Friendship is Love without his wings!

I only go out to get me a fresh appetite for being alone.

Out of chaos God made a world, and out of high passions comes a people.

Yes, love indeed is light from heaven; A spark of that immortal fire with angels shared, by Allah given to lift from earth our low desire.

I have great hopes that we shall love each other all our lives as much as if we had never married at all.

Who tracks the steps of glory to the grave?

My turn of mind is so given to taking things in the absurd point of view, that it breaks out in spite of me every now and then.

A woman should never be seen eating or drinking, unless it be lobster salad and Champagne, the only true feminine and becoming viands.

Nothing can confound a wise man more than laughter from a dunce.

Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.

To withdraw myself from myself has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive in scribbling at all.

A man of eighty has outlived probably three new schools of painting, two of architecture and poetry and a hundred in dress.

Love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey.