LORD BYRON's Quotes

LORD BYRON
(GEORGE GORDON NOEL BYRON)

English poet
(1788 - 1824)

A crowd of shivering slaves of every nation,
And age, and sex, were in the market rang'd;
Each bevy with the merchant in his station:
Poor creatures! their good looks were sadly chang'd;
All save the blacks seem'd jaded with vexation,
From friends, and home, and freedom far estrang'd.
The negroes more philosophy display'd,--
Used to it, no doubt, as eels are to be flay'd.
- [Slavery]

A drop of ink may make a million think.
- [Ink]

A hand may first, and then a lip be kiss'd.
- [Proverbs]

A light broke in upon my soul--
It was the carol of a bird;
It ceased--and then it came again
The sweetest song ear ever heard.
- [Birds]

A little stream came tumbling from the height,
And struggling into ocean as it might.
Its bounding crystal frolick'd in the ray,
And gush'd from cliff to crag with saltless spray.
- [Rivers]

A mere soldier, a mere tool, a kind
Of human sword in a friend's hand.
- [Soldiers]

A paler shadow strews
Its mantle o'er the mountains; parting day
Dies like a dolphin, whom each pang imbues
With a new colour as it gasps away
The last still loveliest 'till--'tis gone--and all is grey.
- [Evening]

A pretty woman is a welcome guest.
- [Guests]

A quill hath proved the noblest gift to man.
- [Quill]

A real spirit
Should neither court neglect, nor dread to bear it.
- [Courage]

A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded.
- [Children]

A sword laid by,
Which eats into itself, and rusts ingloriously.
- [Proverbs]

A tigress, robb'd of young, a lioness,
Or other interesting beast of prey,
Are similes at hand for the distress
Of ladies who cannot have their own way.
- [Proverbs]

A young star, who shone
O'er life, too sweet an image for such gloss,
A lovely being scarcely form'd or moulded,
A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded.
- [Infancy]

Above me are the Alps,
The palaces of Nature, whose vast walls
Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps,
And thron'd Eternity in icy halls
Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls
The avalanche--the thunderbolt of snow!
All that expands the spirit, yet appals,
Gather round these summits, as to show
How Earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man below.
- [Mountains]

Adieu, adieu! my native shore
Fades o'er the waters blue.
- [Adieu]

Adversity is the first path to truth.
- [Adversity]

Ah, happy years, once more who would not be a boy!
- [Proverbs]

Ah, Vice! how soft are thy voluptuous ways!
While boyish blood is mantling, who can 'scape
The fascination of thy magic gaze?
- [Vice]

Alas! our young affections run to waste,
Or water but the desert.
- [Affection]

Alas! the breast that inly bleeds has nought to fear from outward blow.
- [Grief]

Alas! there is no instinct like the heart!
- [Heart]

All is gentle; nought
Stirs rudely; but congenial with the night,
Whatever walks is gliding like a spirit.
- [Night]

All is to be feared where all is to be lost.
- [Caution]

All our advantages are those of fortune; birth, wealth, health, beauty, are her accidents; and when we cry out against fate, it were well we should remember fortune can take naught save what she gave.
- [Fortune]

LORD BYRON (GEORGE GORDON NOEL BYRON)
English poet
(1788 - 1824)
CHECK READING LIST (2) <<>>

All that I know is, that the facts I state
Are true as truth has ever been of late.
- [Truth]

All that the mind would shrink from, of excesses;
All that the body perpetrates, of bad;
All that we read, hear, dream, of man's distresses;
All that the devil would do, if run stark mad;
All that defies the worst which pen expresses
All by which hell is peopled, or is sad
As hell--mere mortals who their power abuse--
Was here (as heretofore and since) let loose.
- [Graves : War]

All was prepared--the fire, the sword, the men
To wield them in their terrible array.
The army, like a lion from his den,
March'd forth with nerves and sinews bent to slay--
A human Hydra, issuing from its fen
To breathe destruction on its winding way,
Whose heads were heroes, which cut off in vain,
Immediately in others grew again.
- [War]

Ambiguous things that ape goats in their visage, women in their shape.
- [Foppery]

And all may think which way their judgments lead 'em.
- [Proverbs]

And cast
O'er erring deeds and thoughts a heav'nly hue
Of words, like sunbeams, dazzling as they pass'd.
- [Counsel]

And glory long has made the sages smile;
'Tis something, nothing, words, illusion, wind--
Depending more upon the historian's style
Than on the name a person leaves behind.
- [Fame]

And mammon wins his way where seraphs might despair.
- [Gold]

And not a breath crept through the rosy air, and yet the forest leaves seemed stirred with prayer.
- [Twilight]

And o'er that fair broad brow were wrought
The intersected lines of thought;
Those furrows, which the burning share
Of sorrow ploughs untimely there:
Scars of the lacerating mind,
Which the soul's war doth leave behind.
- [Sorrow]

And rash enthusiasm in good society
Were nothing but a moral inebriety.
- [Enthusiasm]

And the whole world would henceforth be a wider prison unto me.
- [World]

And though, as you remember, in a fit
Of wrath and rhyme, when juvenile and curly,
I railed at Scots to show my wrath and wit,
Which must be owned was sensitive and surly,
Yet 'tis in vain such sallies to permit,
They cannot quench young feelings fresh and early:
I "scotched, not killed" the Scotchman in my blood,
And love the land of "mountain and of flood."
- [Scotland]

Around her shone
The nameless charms unmark'd by her alone.
The light of love, the purity of grace,
The mind, the music breathing from her face,
The heart whose softness harmonized the whole,
And, oh! that eye was in itself a soul.
- [Beauty]

As fierce as hell, or fiercer still,
A woman piqued who has her will.
- [Proverbs]

As twilight melts beneath the moon away.
- [Twilight]

Ave Maria! blessed be the hour!
The time, the clime, the spot where I so oft
Have felt that moment in its fullest power
Sink o'er the earth so beautiful and soft,
While swung the deep bell in the distant tower,
Or the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft,
And not a breath crept through the rosy air,
And yet the forest leaves seem'd stirr'd with prayer.
Soft hour! which makes the wish and melts the heart
Of those who sail the seas, on the first day;
When they from their sweet friends are torn apart;
Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way,
As the far bell of vesper makes him start,
Seeming to weep the dying day's decay;
Is this a fancy which our reason scorns?
Ah! surely nothing dies but something mourns!
- [Evening]

Away! we know that tears are vain, that death ne'er heeds nor hears distress.
- [Mourners]

Beautiful spirit, with thy hair of light and dazzling eyes of glory!
- [Spirits]

Before decay's effacing fingers
Have swept the lines where beauty lingers.
- [Death : Decay]

Blood only serves to wash Ambition's hands.
- [Ambition]

Born to be ploughed with years, and sown with cares, and reaped by Death, lord of the human soil.
- [Man]

But all have prices,
From crowns to kicks, according to their vices.
- [Vice]

But passion raves herself to rest, or flies;
And vice, that digs her own voluptuous tomb
Had buried long his hopes, no more to rise:
Pleasure's pall'd victim! life-abhorring gloom
Wrote on his faded brow curst Cain's unresting doom.
- [Satiety]

But scandal's my aversion--I protest
Against all evil speaking, even in jest.
- [Proverbs]

LORD BYRON (GEORGE GORDON NOEL BYRON)
English poet
(1788 - 1824)
CHECK READING LIST (2) <<>>

But sighs subside, and tears (even widows') shrink,
Like Arno in the summer, to a shallow.
- [Proverbs]

But still her lips refused to say, farewell: for in that word, that fatal word, howe'er we promise, hope, believe, there breathes despair.
- [Parting]

But thy true lovers more admire by far
Thy naked beauties; give me a cigar.
- [Proverbs]

But time strips our illusions of their hue,
And one by one in turn some grand mistake
Casts off its bright skin yearly like a snake.
- [Proverbs]

But who alas! can love and then be wise?
- [Proverbs]

But who would scorn the month of June,
Because December with his breath so hoary,
Must come? Much rather should he court the ray,
To hoard up warmth against a wintry day.
- [Proverbs]

By heaven! it is a splendid sight to see
(For one who hath no friend, no brother there)
Their rival scarfs of mix'd embroidery,
Their various arms that glitter in the air!
What gallant war-hounds rouse them from their lair,
And gnash their fangs, loud yelling for the prey!
All join the chase, but few the triumph share;
The grave shall bear the chiefest prize away,
And havoc scarce for joy can number their array.
- [War]

By satire kept in awe, shrink from ridicule, though not from law.
- [Satire]

By those tresses unconfin'd,
Woo'd by very gentle wind;
By those lids whose jetty fringe
Kiss thy soft cheek's blooming tinge;
By those wild eyes, like the roe,
Ah! hear my vow before I go--
My dearest life, I love thee!
Can I cease to love thee?--no!
Zoe mous s-as ogapo.
- [Proposals]

Chaste were his steps, each kept within due bound,
And elegance was sprinkled o'er his figure;
Like swift Camilla, he scarce skimm'd the ground.
And rather held in than put forth his vigor.
And then he had an ear for music's sound,
Which might defy a crotchet critic's rigor.
Such classic pas--sans flaws--set off our hero.
He glanced like a personified Bolero.
- [Dancing]

Circumstance, that unspiritual god and miscreator, makes and helps along our coming evils.
- [Circumstance]

Cleverness and cunning are incompatible.
- [Cunning]

Clime of the unforgotten brave!
Whose land, from plain to mountain-cave,
Was Freedom's home, or Glory's grave;
Shrine of the mighty! can it be,
That this is all remains of thee?
- [Greece]

Constant thought will overflow in words unconsciously.
- [Thought]

Could we but keep our spirit to that height,
We might be happy; but the clay will sink
Its thoughts immortal.
- [Thought]

Danger levels man and brute, and all are fellows in their need.
- [Danger]

Dead! God, how much there is in that little word!
- [Death]

Decayed in thy glory and sunk in thy worth.
- [France]

Deep in my shut and silent heart.
- [Secrecy]

Deformity is daring;
It is its essence to o'ertake mankind
By heart and soul, and make itself the equal--
Ay, the superior of the rest. There is
A spur in its halt movements, to become
All that the others cannot, in such things
As still are free for both, to compensate
For stepdame Nature's avarice at first.
- [Deformity]

Demons in act, but gods at least in face.
- [Proverbs]

Despair defies even despotism; there is that in my heart would make its way through hosts with leveled spears.
- [Despair]

Despair of all recovery spoils longevity,
And makes men's miseries of alarming brevity.
- [Proverbs]

Does not the law of Heaven say blood for blood?
And he who taints kills more than he who sheds it.
- [Slander]

Dreading that climax of all earthly ills,
The inflammation of his weekly bills.
- [Proverbs]


LORD BYRON (GEORGE GORDON NOEL BYRON)
English poet
(1788 - 1824)
CHECK READING LIST (2) <<>>

Dreams in their development have breath,
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy,
They have a weight upon our waking thoughts,
They take a weight from off our waking toils,
They do divide our being.
- [Dreams]

Eden revives in the first kiss of love.
- [Kisses]

Ennui is a growth of English root, though nameless in our language.
- [Ennui]

Even as a broken mirror, which the glass
In every fragment multiplies, and makes
A thousand images of one that was
The same, and still the more, the more it breaks.
- [Contention]

Every fool describes in these bright days his wondrous journey to some foreign court, and spawns his quarto, and demands your praise.
- [Authorship]

Existence may be borne, and the deep root
Of life and sufferance make its firm abode
In bare and desolate bosoms: mute
The camel labors with the heaviest load,
And the wolf dies in silence: Not bestow'd
In vain should such examples be; if they,
Things of ignoble or of savage mood,
Endure and shrink not, we of nobler clay
May temper it to bear--it is but for a day.
- [Fortitude]

Experience has taught me that the only friends we can call our own, who can have no change, are those over whom the grave has closed; the seal of death is the only seal of friendship.
- [Friends]

Experience, that chill touchstone whose sad proof reduces all things from their hue.
- [Experience]

Fair Italy!
Thou art the garden of the world, the home
Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree,
Even in thy desert, what is like to thee?
Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste
More rich than other climes fertility;
Thy wreck a glory, and thy ruin graced
With an immaculate charm which cannot be defac'd.
- [Italy]

Fame is the thirst of youth.
- [Fame]

Famed
For every branch of every science known.
- [Proverbs]

Famish'd people must be slowly nurst,
And fed by spoonfuls, else they always burst.
- [Eating]

Famished people must be slowly nursed,
And fed by spoonfuls, else they always burst.
- [Hunger]

Far along,
From peak to peak the rattling crags among,
Leaps the live thunder.
- [Thunder]

Farewell!
For in that word,--that fatal word,--howe'er
We promise--hope--believe,--there breathes despair.
- [Farewell]

Farewell! if ever fondest prayer
For other's weal availed on high,
Mine will not all be lost in air
But waft thy name beyond the sky.
- [Farewell]

"Farewell, my Spain! a long farewell!" he cried.
"Perhaps I may revisit thee no more,
But die, as many an exiled heart hath died,
Of its own thirst to see again thy shore."
- [Exile]

Flowers whose wild odors breathe but agonies.
- [Passion]

Foes, friends, men, women, now are nought to me
But dreams of what has been, no more to be.
- [Proverbs]

For Ennui is a growth of English root,
Though nameless in our language:--we retort
The fact for words, and let the French translate
That awful Yawn which Sleep cannot abate.
- [Ennui]

For glances beget ogles, ogles sighs,
Sighs wishes, wishes words, and words a letter.
- [Proverbs]

For no one cares for matrimonial cooings,
There's nothing wrong in a connubial kiss.
- [Proverbs]

For over-warmth, if false, is worse than truth.
- [Proverbs]

For violets plucked, the sweetest showers will ne'er make grow again.
- [Chastity]

For without transformation
Men become wolves on every slight occasion.
- [Proverbs]

LORD BYRON (GEORGE GORDON NOEL BYRON)
English poet
(1788 - 1824)
CHECK READING LIST (2) <<>>

Formed of two mighty tribes, the bores and bored.
- [Society]

Fresh feres will dry the bright blue eye
We late saw streaming o'er.
- [Proverbs]

Gaming gains a loss.
- [Proverbs]

Give me the soft sigh, whilst the soul-telling eye
Is dimm'd for a time with a tear.
- [Proverbs]

Glory long has made the sages smile; 'tis something, nothing, words, illusion, wind.
- [Glory]

Half dust, half deity, alike unfit to sink or soar.
- [Man]

Hark to the Boatswain's call, the cheering cry!
While through the seaman's hand the tackle glides;
Or schoolboy Midshipman that, standing by,
Strains his shrill pipe as good or ill betides,
And well the docile crew that skilful urchin guides.
- [Sailors]

Have not all past human beings parted,
And must not all the present, one day part?
- [Parting]

He fell upon whate'er was offer'd, like
A priest, a shark, an alderman, or pike.
- [Dinner]

He had then the grace, too rare in every clime,
Of being, without alloy of fop or beau,
A finish'd gentleman from top to toe.
- [Gentlemen]

He learn'd the arts of riding, fencing, gunnery,
And how to scale a fortress or--a nunnery.
- [Sport]

He makes a solitude, and calls it peace.
- [Proverbs]

He sighed;--the next resource is the full moon,
Where all sighs are deposited; and now
It happen'd luckily, the chaste orb shone.
- [Sighs]

He who ascends to mountain-tops shall find
Their loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds of snow;
He who surpasses or subdues mankind,
Must look down on the hate of those below.
Tho' high above the sun of glory glow,
And far beneath the earth and ocean spread,
Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow
Contending tempests on his naked head.
- [Greatness]

He who first met the Highland's swelling blue,
Will love each peak that shows a kindred hue:
Hail in each crag a friend's familiar face,
And clasp the mountain in his mind's embrace.
- [Mountains]

He who hath bent him o'er the dead,
Ere the first day of death is fled--
The first dark day of nothingness,
The last of danger and distress,
(Before Decay's effacing fingers,
Have swept the lines where beauty lingers)--
And mark'd the mild angelic air,
The rapture of repose that's there.
- [Dead]

He who is only just is cruel.
- [Justice]

Heaven in sunshine will requite the kind.
- [Kindness]

Her eye (I am very fond of handsome eyes),
Was large and dark, suppressing half its fire
Until she spoke, then through its soft disguise
Flash'd an expression more of pride than ire,
And love than either; and there would arise,
A something in them which was not desire,
But would have been, perhaps, but for the soul,
Which struggled through and chasten'd down the whole.
- [Eyes]

Her lips, whose kisses pout to leave their nest.
- [Lips]

Her overpowering presence made you feel
It would not be idolatry to kneel.
- [Beauty]

Here and there some stern high patriot stood,
Who could not get the place for which he sued.
- [Office]

Hide thy tears,--I do not bid thee not to shed them,--it were easier to stop Euphrates at its source than one tear of a true and tender heart.
- [Tears]

His bold brow bears but the scars of mind, the thoughts of years, not their decrepitude.
- [Thought]

His early dreams of good outstripp'd the truth,
And troubled manhood follow'd baffled youth.
- [Disappointment]