Top 614 Quotes & Sayings by Lord Byron - Page 8

The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave, The moon, their mistress, had expir'd before; The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air, And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need Of aid from them-She was the Universe.

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

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.

Our life is two fold Sleep hath its own world, A boundary between the things misnamed Death and existence Sleep hath its own world, And a wide realm of wild reality.

I have seen a thousand graves opened, and always perceived that whatever was gone, the teeth and hair remained of those who had died with them. Is not this odd? They go the very first things in youth and yet last the longest in the dust.

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

The image of Eternity--the throne Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

A bargain is in its very essence a hostile transaction do not all men try to abate the price of all they buy? I contend that a bargain even between brethren is a declaration of war.

Yet I did love thee to the last, As ferverently as thou, Who didst not change through all the past, And canst not alter now.

Ah, nut-brown partridges! Ah, brilliant pheasants! And ah, ye poachers!--'Tis no sport for peasants.

A schoolboy's tale, the wonder of an hour!

Love rules the camp, the court, the grove - for love is Heaven, and Heaven is love.

A feast not profuse but elegant; more of salt [refinement] than of expense.

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

It is not for minds like ours to give or to receive flatter; yet the praises of sincerity have ever been permitted to the voice of friendship

As to Don Juan, confess that it is the sublime of that there sort of writing; it may be bawdy, but is it not good English? It may be profligate, but is it not life, is it not the thing? Could any man have written it who has not lived in the world? and tooled in a post-chaise? in a hackney coach? in a Gondola? against a wall? in a court carriage? in a vis a vis? on a table? and under it?

And hold up to the sun my little taper.

Brisk Confidence still best with woman copes: Pique her and soothe in turn-soon Passion crowns thy hopes.

One hates an author that's all author.

May Moorland weavers boast Pindaric skill, And tailors' lays be longer than their bill! While punctual beaux reward the grateful notes, And pay for poems--when they pay for coats.

Yet still there whispers the small voice within, Heard through Gain's silence, and o'er Glory's din; Whatever creed be taught or land be trod, Man's conscience is the oracle of God.

The mellow autumn came, and with it came The promised party, to enjoy its sweets. The corn is cut, the manor full of game; The pointer ranges, and the sportsman beats In russet jacket;--lynx-like is his aim; Full grows his bag, and wonderful his feats. An, nutbrown partridges! An, brilliant pheasants! And ah, ye poachers!--'Tis no sport for peasants.

The music, and the banquet, and the wine-- The garlands, the rose odors, and the flowers, The sparkling eyes, and flashing ornaments-- The white arms and the raven hair--the braids, And bracelets; swan-like bosoms, and the necklace, An India in itself, yet dazzling not.

Most glorious night! Thou wert not sent for slumber!

Yet smelt roast meat, beheld a huge fire shine, And cooks in motion with their clean arms bared.

I love the language, it sounds as if it should be writ on satin with syllables which breathe of the sweet South

Old man! 'Tis not difficult to die.

And the small ripple spilt upon the beach Scarcely o'erpass'd the cream of your champagne, When o'er the brim the sparkling bumpers reach, That spring-dew of the spirit! the heart's rain! Few things surpass old wine; and they may preach Who please,—the more because they preach in vain,— Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter, Sermons and soda-water the day after.

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

I am no Platonist, I am nothing at all; but I would sooner be a Paulician, Manichean, Spinozist, Gentile, Pyrrhonian, Zoroastrian, than one of the seventy-two villainous sects who are tearing each other to pieces for the love of the Lord and hatred of each other.

My native land, good night!

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.

Bread has been made (indifferent) from potatoes; And galvanism has set some corpses grinning, But has not answer'd like the apparatus Of the Humane Society's beginning, By which men are unsuffocated gratis: What wondrous new machines have late been spinning.

My beautiful, my own My only Venice-this is breath! Thy breeze Thine Adrian sea-breeze, how it fans my face! Thy very winds feel native to my veins, And cool them into calmness!

Just as old age is creeping on space, And clouds come o'er the sunset of our day, They kindly leave us, though not quite alone, But in good company--the gout or stone.

For all we know that English people are/ Fed upon beef - I won't say much of beer/ Because 'tis liquor only, and being far/ From this my subject, has no business here;/ We know too, they are very fond of war,/ A pleasure - like all pleasures - rather dear;/ So were the Cretans - from which I infer/ That beef and battle both were owing her

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

Yon Sun that sets upon the sea We follow in his flight; Farewell awhile to him and thee, My native land-Good Night!

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

Italia! O Italia! thou who hast The fatal gift of beauty.

We of the craft are all crazy.

Well, well, the world must turn upon its axis, And all mankind turn with it, heads or tails, And live and die, make love and pay our taxes, And as the veering winds shift, shift our sails.

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

I suppose we shall soon travel by air-vessels; make air instead of sea voyages; and at length find our way to the moon, in spite of the want of atmosphere.

What men call gallantry, and gods adultery, is much more common where the climate's sultry.

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!

One certainly has a soul; but how it came to allow itself to be enclosed in a body is more than I can imagine.

Such is your cold coquette, who can't say "No," And won't say "Yes," and keeps you on and off-ing On a lee-shore, till it begins to blow, Then sees your heart wreck'd, with an inward scoffing.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.

This is the patent-age of new inventions For killing bodies, and for saving souls, All propagated with the best intentions; Sir Humphrey Davy's lantern, by which coals Are safely mined for in the mode he mentions, Tombuctoo travels, voyages to the Poles, Are ways to benefit mankind, as true, Perhaps, as shooting them at Waterloo.

Sleep hath its own world, and the wide realm of wild reality.

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

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.

Rough Johnson, the great moralist.

Dead scandals form good subjects for dissection.

The thorns which I have reap'd are of the tree I planted; they have torn me, and I bleed. I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.

A mighty mass of brick, and smoke, and shipping, Dirty and dusty, but as wide as eye Could reach, with here and there a sail just skipping In sight, then lost amidst the forestry Of masts; a wilderness of steeples peeping On tiptoe through their sea-coal canopy; A huge, dun cupola, like a fools-cap crown On a fool's head - and there is London Town.

War, war is still the cry,-"war even to the knife!"

I have not loved the World, nor the World me; I have not flattered its rank breath, nor bowed To its idolatries a patient knee, Nor coined my cheek to smiles,-nor cried aloud In worship of an echo.

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