Lord Byron Quotes

"A celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn't know."

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

"A mistress never is nor can be a friend. While you agree, you are lovers; and when it is over, anything but friends."

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

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

"All who joy would win must share it. Happiness was born a Twin."

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

"And yet a little tumult, now and then, is an agreeable quickener of sensation; such as a revolution, a battle, or an adventure of any lively description."

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

"As long as I retain my feeling and my passion for Nature, I can partly soften or subdue my other passions and resist or endure those of others."

"Be thou the rainbow in the storms of life. The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, and tints tomorrow with prophetic ray."

"Between two worlds life hovers like a star, twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's verge."

"But - Oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual, inform us truly, have they not hen-pecked you all?"

"But what is Hope? Nothing but the paint on the face of Existence; the least touch of truth rubs it off, and then we see what a hollow-cheeked harlot we have got hold of."

"But words are things, and a small drop of ink,Falling like dew, upon a thought, producesThat which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think."

"Death, so called, is a thing which makes men weep, And yet a third of life is passed in sleep."

"Every day confirms my opinion on the superiority of a vicious life - and if Virtue is not its own reward I don't know any other stipend annexed to it."

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

"For pleasures past I do not grieve, nor perils gathering near; My greatest grief is that I leave nothing that claims a tear."

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

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

"He who surpasses or subdues mankind, must look down on the hate of those below."

"Her great merit is finding out mine - there is nothing so amiable as discernment."

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

"I am acquainted with no immaterial sensuality so delightful as good acting."

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

"I have a great mind to believe in Christianity for the mere pleasure of fancying I may be damned."

"I have a notion that gamblers are as happy as most people, being always excited; women, wine, fame, the table, even ambition, sate now and then, but every turn of the card and cast of the dice keeps the gambler alive - besides one can game ten times longer than one can do any thing else."

"I have always believed that all things depended upon Fortune, and nothing upon ourselves."

"I have always laid it down as a maxim -and found it justified by experience -that a man and a woman make far better friendships than can exist between two of the same sex -but then with the condition that they never have made or are to make love to each other."

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

"I have had, and may have still, a thousand friends, as they are called, in life, who are like one's partners in the waltz of this world -not much remembered when the ball is over."

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

"I know that two and two make four - and should be glad to prove it too if I could - though I must say if by any sort of process I could convert 2 and 2 into five it would give me much greater pleasure."

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

"I should be very willing to redress men wrongs, and rather check than punish crimes, had not Cervantes, in that all too true tale of Quixote, shown how all such efforts fail."

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

"If I could always read, I should never feel the want of company."

"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."

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

"In short, he was a perfect cavaliero, and to his very valet seemed a hero."

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

"It is useless to tell one not to reason but to believe -you might as well tell a man not to wake but sleep."

"John Adams lies here, of the parish of Southwell, a carrier who carried his can to his mouth well; he carried so much, and he carried so fast, he could carry no more - so was carried at last; for the liquor he drank, being too much for one, he could not carry off - so he's now carri-on."

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

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

"Like the measles, love is most dangerous when it comes late in life."

"Lovers may be - and indeed generally are - enemies, but they never can be friends, because there must always be a spice of jealousy and a something of Self in all their speculations."

"Man is born passionate of body, but with an innate though secret tendency to the love of Good in his main-spring of Mind. But God help us all! It is at present a sad jar of atoms."

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

"Man's love is of man's life a part; it is a woman's whole existence. In her first passion, a woman loves her lover, in all the others all she loves is love."

"Men are the sport of circumstances when it seems circumstances are the sport of men."

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

"My attachment has neither the blindness of the beginning, nor the microscopic accuracy of the close of such liaisons."

"My time has been passed viciously and agreeably; at thirty-one so few years months days hours or minutes remain that Carpe Diem is not enough. I have been obliged to crop even the seconds-for who can trust to tomorrow?"

"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."

"No ear can hear nor tongue can tell the tortures of the inward hell!"

"O Fame! if I e'er took delight in thy praises, 'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases, Than to see the bright eyes of the dear one discover The thought that I was not unworthy to love her."

"Oh Time! the beautifier of the dead, adorer of the ruin, comforter and only healer when the heart hath bled... Time, the avenger!"

"Oh! there is an organ playing in the street - a waltz too! I must leave off to listen."

"One certainly has a soul; but how it came to allow itself to be enclosed in a body is more than I can imagine. I only know if once mine gets out, I'll have a bit of a tussle before I let it get in again to that of any other."

"Opinions are made to be changed -or how is truth to be got at?"

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

"Posterity will never survey a nobler grave than this: here lie the bones of Castlereagh: stop, traveler, and piss."

"Roll on, deep and dark blue ocean, roll. Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain. Man marks the earth with ruin, but his control stops with the shore."

"Society is now one polished horde, formed of two mighty tries, the Bores and Bored."

"Sometimes we are less unhappy in being deceived by those we love, than in being undeceived by them."

"Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life."

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

"The Angels were all singing out of tune, and hoarse with having little else to do, excepting to wind up the sun and moon or curb a runaway young star or two."

"The beginning of atonement is the sense of its necessity."

"The best way will be to avoid each other without appearing to do so - or if we jostle, at any rate not to bite."

"The Cardinal is at his wit's end - it is true that he had not far to go."

"The dead have been awakened - shall I sleep? The world's at war with tyrants - shall I crouch? the harvest's ripe - and shall I pause to reap? I slumber not; the thorn is in my couch; Each day a trumpet soundeth in mine ear, its echo in my heart."

"The king-times are fast finishing. There will be blood shed like water, and tears like mist; but the peoples will conquer in the end. I shall not live to see it, but I foresee it."

"The place is very well and quiet and the children only scream in a low voice."

"The poor dog, in life the firmest friend. The first to welcome, foremost to defend."

"The tenor's voice is spoilt by affectation, And for the bass, the beast can only bellow; In fact, he had no singing education, An ignorant, noteless, timeless, tuneless fellow."

"The way to be immortal (I mean not to die at all) is to have me for your heir. I recommend you to put me in your will and you will see that (as long as I live at least) you will never even catch cold."

"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 roarI love not Man the less, but Nature more."

"There is something pagan in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything."

"There is, in fact, no law or government at all [in Italy]; and it is wonderful how well things go on without them."

"There's naught, no doubt, so much the spirit calms as rum and true religion."

"This is the patent age of new inventions for killing bodies, and for saving souls. All propagated with the best intentions."

"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."

"This sort of adoration of the real is but a heightening of the beau ideal."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What a strange thing is the propagation of life! A bubble of seed which may be spilt in a whore's lap, or in the orgasm of a voluptuous dream, might (for aught we know) have formed a Caesar or a Bonaparte - there is nothing remarkable recorded of their sires, that I know of."

"What an antithetical mind! - tenderness, roughness - delicacy, coarseness - sentiment, sensuality - soaring and groveling, dirt and deity - all mixed up in that one compound of inspired clay!"

"What is fame? The advantage of being known by people of whom you yourself know nothing, and for whom you care as little."

"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."

"When one subtracts from life infancy (which is vegetation), sleep, eating and swilling, buttoning and unbuttoning - how much remains of downright existence? The summer of a dormouse."

"When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy, And the dimpling stream runs laughing by; When the air does laugh with our merry wit, And the green hill laughs with the noise of it."

"Where there is mystery, it is generally suspected there must also be evil."

"Why did she love him? Curious fool - be still - is human love the growth of human will?"

"Why I came here, I know not; where I shall go it is useless to inquire - in the midst of myriads of the living and the dead worlds, stars, systems, infinity, why should I be anxious about an atom?"

"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."

"Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying, streams like the thunderstorm against the wind."

"Your letter of excuses has arrived. I receive the letter but do not admit the excuses except in courtesy, as when a man treads on your toes and begs your pardon - the pardon is granted, but the joint aches, especially if there is a corn upon it."