Quotes by Lord Byron

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

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

Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt
In solitude, where we are least alone.

A drop of ink may make a million think.

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.

In solitude, where we are least alone.

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

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

I love not man the less, but Nature more.

The busy have no time for tears.

Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure.

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

Shakespeare's name, you may depend on it, stands absurdly too high and will go down.

Wives in their husbands' absences grow subtler, And daughters sometimes run off with the butler.

Yes! ready money is Aladdin's lamp.

The reading or non-reading a book will never keep down a single petticoat.

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

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.

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

If I am fool, it is, at least, a doubting one; and I envy no one the certainty of his self-approved wisdom.

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

I slept and dreamt that life was beauty; I woke and found that life was duty.

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

Despair and Genius are too oft connected.

I do not believe in any religion, I will have nothing to do with immortality. We are miserable enough in this life without speculating upon another.

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!

A woman who gives any advantage to a man may expect a lover -- but will sooner or later find a tyrant.

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

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.

And there the stories
Of martyrs awed, as Spagnoletto tainted
His brush with all the blood of all the sainted.

All who joy would win
Must share it -- Happiness was born a twin.

On with the dance! let joy be unconfin'd.

Fare thee well, and if for ever
Still for ever fare thee well.

The stars are forth, the moon above the tops
Of the snow-shining mountains.--Beautiful!
I linger yet with Nature, for the night
Hath been to me a more familiar face
Than that of man; and in her starry shade
Of dim and solitary loveliness,
I learn'd the language of another world.

A woman being never at a loss... the devil always sticks by them.

Like other parties of the kind, it was first silent, then talky, then argumentative, then disputatious, then unintelligible, then altogether, then inarticulate, and then drunk. When we had reached the last step of this glorious ladder, it was difficult to get down again without stumbling.

LUCIFER: They say what they must sing and say on pain
Of being that which I am and thou art --
Of spirits and of men.

CAIN: And what is that?

LUCIFER: Souls who dare use their immortality,
Souls who dare look the omnipotent tyrant in
His everlasting face and tell him that
His evil is not good!

The light of love, the purity of grace,
The mind, the Music breathing from her face,
The heart whose softness harmonised the whole --
And, oh! that eye was in itself a Soul!

Sorrow is knowledge: they who know the most must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth, the Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life.

Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt in solitude, where we are least alone.

Oh! too convincing -- dangerously dear -- In woman's eye the unanswerable tear!

Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure; Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure.

Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been--A sound which makes us linger; yet--farewell!

Merely innocent flirtation, Not quite adultery, but adulteration.

Wives in their husbands' absences grow subtler, and daughters sometimes run off with the butler.

Years steal fire from the mind as vigour from the limb; And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.

And, after all, what is lie? 'Tis but the truth in masquerade.

Always laugh when you can...it is a cheap medicine.

LUCIFER: I pity thee who lovest what must perish.
CAIN: And I thee who lov'st nothing.

So much alarmed that she is quite alarming.

And hold up to the sun my little taper.

And the commencement of atonement is the sense of its necessity.

I am ashes where once I was fire.

Think not I am what I appear.

We of the craft are all crazy.

How sweet and soothing is this hour of calm! I thank thee, night! for thou has chased away these horrid bodements which, amidst the throng, I could not dissipate; and with the blessing of thy benign and quiet influence now will I to my couch, although to rest is almost wronging such a night as this.

Dreading that climax of all human ills the inflammation of his weekly bills.

Cervantes smiled Spain's chivalry away.

Eternity forbids thee to forget.

Truth is a gem that is found at a great depth; whilst on the surface of the world all things are weighed by the false scale of custom.

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

I have a notion that gamblers are as happy as most people -- being always excited.

Lord of himself; that heritage of woe!

I loved my country, and I hated him.

Good but rarely came from good advice.

The law of heaven and earth is life for life.

While common men grow ignorantly old,
The lawyer's brief is like the surgeon's knife,
Dissecting the whole inside of a question,
And with it all the process of digestion.

This is to be mortal, And seek the things beyond mortality.

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

Let not his mode of raising cash seem strange,
Although he fleeced the flags of every nation,
For into a prime minister but change
His title, and 'tis nothing but taxation.

The heart ran o'er With silent worship of the great of old! -- The dead, but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule Our spirits from their urns.

Dim with the mist of years, gray flits the shade of power.

Here's a sigh to those who love me,And a smile to those who hate;And, whatever sky's above me,Here's a heart for every fate.

When age chills the blood, when our pleasures are past --
For years fleet away with the wings of the dove -
The dearest remembrance will still be the last,
Our sweetest memorial the first kiss of love.

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.

There is no traitor like him whose domestic treason plants the poniard within the breast that trusted to his truth.

Oh! snatched away in beauty's bloom,
On thee shall press no ponderous tomb;
But on thy turf shall roses rear
Their leaves, the earliest of the year.

And 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.

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.

Reason is so unreasonable, that few people can say they are in possession of it.

I will keep no further journal of that same hesternal torch‐light ; and, to prevent me from returning, like a dog, to the vomit of memory, I tear out the remaining leaves of this volume.

Romances paint at full length people's wooing. But only give a bust of marriages.

A timid mind is apt to mistake every scratch for a mortal wound.

Ada! sole daughter of my house and heart.

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

Armenian is the language to speak with God.

Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded. That all the Apostles would have done as they did.

Grief is fantastical, and loves the dead, And the apparel of the grave.

None are so desolate but something dear, Dearer than self, possesses or possess'd A thought, and claims the homage of a tear.

Then, fare thee well, deceitful Maid!

When Bishop Berkeley said there was no matter. And proved it -- 't was no matter what he said.

What exile from himself can flee? To zones, though more and more remote, Still, still pursues, where'er I be, The blight of life -- the demon Thought.

Pure friendship's well-feigned blush.

Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so fast, But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past.

All Heaven and Earth are still, though not in sleep, But breathless, as we grow when feeling most.

Be warm, be pure, be amorous, but be chaste.

The mind can make substance, and people planets of its own with beings brighter than have been, and give a breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.

My great comfort is, that the temporary celebrity I have wrung from the world has been in the very teeth of all opinions and prejudices. I have flattered no ruling powers; I have never concealed a single thought that tempted me.

To what gulfs A single deviation from the track Of human duties leads even those who claim The homage of mankind as their born due, And find it, till they forfeit it themselves!

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.

And angling too, that solitary vice, What Izaak Walton sings or says: The quaint, old, cruel coxcomb, in his gullet Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it.

So sweet the blush of bashfulness, E'en pity scarce can wish it less!

Whatsoever thy birth, Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied forth.

Bologna is celebrated for producing popes, painters, and sausage.

For there was soft remembrance, and sweet trust
In one fond breast, to which his own would melt,
And in its tenderer hour on that his bosom dwelt.

Methinks the older that one grows,
Inclines us more to laugh the scold, though laughter
Leaves us so doubly serious shortly after.

The world is a bundle of hay, Mankind are the asses that pull, Each tugs in a different way And the greatest of all is John Bull!

Oh, Christ! it is a goodly sight to see What Heaven hath done for this delicious land!

Dead scandals form good subjects for dissection.

The dome of thought, the palace of the soul.

The stars are forth, the moon above the tops Of the snow-shining mountains -- beautiful! I linger yet with nature, for the night Hath been to me a more familiar face Than that of man, and in her starry shade Of dim and solitary loveliness I learned the language of another world.

All human history attests That happiness for man, -- the hungry sinner! -- Since Eve ate apples, much depends on dinner. ~Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto XIII, stanza 99.

He learned the arts of riding, fencing, gunnery, And how to scale a fortress -- or a nunnery.

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.

O ye! who teach the ingenious youth of nations, Holland, France, England, Germany or Spain, I pray ye flog them upon all occasions, It mends their morals, never mind the pain.

If ancient tales say true, nor wrong these holy men.

But as to women, who can penetrate the real sufferings of their she condition? Man's very sympathy with their estate has much of selfishness and more suspicion. Their love, their virtue, beauty, education, but form good housekeepers, to breed a nation.

Grief should be the instructor of the wise; Sorrow is Knowledge.

It is the lava of the imagination whose eruption prevents an earthquake.

The lapse of ages changes all things -- time, language, the earth, the bounds of the sea, the stars of the sky, and every thing about, around, and underneath man, except man himself.

Letter writing is the only device combining solitude with good company.

Now I shall go to sleep. Goodnight.

I am surrounded here by parsons and methodists, but as you will see, not infested with the mania.

Oh, talk not to me of a name great in story; The days of our youth are the days of our glory; And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty.

Above or Love, Hope, Hate or Fear, It lives all passionless and pure: An age shall fleet like earthly year; Its years in moments shall endure. Away, away, without a wing, O'er all, through all, its thought shall fly; A nameless and eternal thing, Forgetting what it was to die.

And I would hear yet once before I perish The voice which was my music... Speak to me!

One of the pleasures of reading old letters is the knowledge that they need no answer.

So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain, No more through rolling clouds to soar again, View'd his own feather on the fatal dart, And wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his heart.

Nor all that heralds rake from coffin'd clay, Nor florid prose, nor honied lies of rhyme, Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime.

Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth! Immortal, though no more! though fallen, great!

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

Oh, nature's noblest gift, my grey goose quill, Slave of my thoughts, obedient to my will, Torn from the parent bird to form a pen, That mighty instrument of little men.

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!

No more we meet in yonder bowers Absence has made me prone to roving; But older, firmer hearts than ours, Have found monotony in loving.

Tyranny Is far the worst of treasons. Dost thou deem None rebels except subjects? The prince who Neglects or violates his trust is more A brigand than the robber-chief.

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.

In secret we met -- In silence I grieve, That thy heart could forget, Thy spirit deceive. If I should meet thee After long years, How should I greet thee? -- With silence and tears.

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.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!

We have fools in all sects, and impostors in most; why should I believe mysteries no one can understand, because written by men who chose to mistake madness for inspiration and style themselves Evangelicals?

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 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!

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

Though the day of my Destiny 's over, And the star of my Fate hath declined, Thy soft heart refused to discover The faults which so many could find.

There's music in the sighing of a reed; There's music in the gushing of a rill; There's music in all things, if men had ears; The earth is but the music of the spheres.

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.