Friday, April 24, 2009

George Gordon Byron

1. “Absence - that common cure of love.”
2. ”Adversity is the first path to truth.”
3. “Alas! the love of women! it is known
To be a lovely and a fearful thing.”
4. "All are inclined to believe what they covet, from a lottery-ticket up to a passport to Paradise."
5. "All farewells should be sudden, when forever."
6. “All Heaven and Earth are still, though not in sleep,
But breathless, as we grow when feeling most.”
7. “All is concentred in a life intense,
Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost,
But hath a part of being.”
8. “All who would win joy, must share it; happiness was born a twin.”
9. “A long, long kiss, a kiss of youth, and love.”
10. “A lovely being, scarcely formed or moulded,
A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded.”
11. “A man of eighty has outlived probably three new schools of painting, two of architecture and poetry and a hundred in dress.”
12. “And, after all, what is a lie? 'Tis but
The truth in masquerade.”
13. “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.”
14. “And her face so fair
Stirr'd with her dream, as rose-leaves with the air.”
15. “And to his eye
There was but one beloved face on earth,
And that was shining on him.”
16. “And when we think we lead, we are most led.”
17. “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.”
18. “A schoolboy's tale, the wonder of an hour!”
19. “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?”
20. “Be hypocritical, be cautious, be
Not what you seem but always what you see.”
21. “Be thou the rainbow in the storms of life. The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, and tints tomorrow with prophetic ray.”
22. “Blushed like the waves of hell.”
23. “But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we,
Half dust, half deity, alike unfit
To sink or soar.”
24. ”But words are things,
and a small drop of ink,
Falling like dew,
upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands,
perhaps millions, think.”
25. “Come, lay thy head upon my breast, / And I will kiss thee into rest.”
26. “Did man compute
Existence by enjoyment, and count o'er
Such hours 'gainst years of life, say, would he name threescore?”
27. “Eternity forbids thee to forget.”
28. “Folly loves the martyrdom of Fame.”
29. “Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.”
30. “For I am a weed,
Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam, to sail,
Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail.”
31. "For in itself a thought, a slumbering thought, is capable of years, and curdles a long life into one hour."
32. “For pleasures past I do not grieve,
nor perils gathering near;
My greatest grief is that I
leave nothing that claims a tear.”
33. "Hatred is the madness of the heart."
34. “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.”
35. “Her eye (I'm 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 chansten'd down the whole.”
36. “He who is only just is cruel. Who on earth could live were all judged justly.”
37. “His heart was one of those which most enamour us,
Wax to receive, and marble to retain.”
38. "I am acquainted with no immaterial sensuality so delightful as good acting."
39. “I do detest everything which is not perfectly mutual.”
40. ”If I don't write to empty my mind, I go mad.”
41. ”If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears.”
42. “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.”
43. “I had a dream which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars
Did wander darkling in eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air…”
44. “I have great hopes that we shall love each other all our lives as much as if we had never married at all.”
45. "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."
46. “I'll publish right or wrong.
Fools are my theme,
let satire be my song.”
47. “In her first passion woman loves her lover,
In all the others all she loves is love.”
48. “In hope to merit Heaven by making earth a Hell.”
49. "I really cannot know whether I am or am not the Genius you are pleased to call me, but I am very willing to put up with the mistake, if it be one. It is a title dearly enough bought by most men, to render it endurable, even when not quite clearly made out, which it never can be till the Posterity, whose decisions are merely dreams to ourselves, has sanctioned or denied it, while it can touch us no further."
50. "I should like to know who has been carried off, except poor dear me -- I have been more ravished myself than anybody since the Trojan war."
51. “In solitude, when we are least alone.”
52. “I take the view, and always have, that if you cannot say what you are going to say in 20 minutes you ought to go away and write a book about it.”
53. “I tell him, if a clergyman, he lies!
If captains the remark, or critics, make,
Why they lie also--under a mistake.”
54. "It is odd but agitation or contest of any kind gives a rebound to my spirits and sets me up for a time."
55. ”It is singular how soon we lose the impression of what ceases to be constantly before us. A year impairs, a luster obliterates. There is little distinct left without an effort of memory, then indeed the lights are rekindled for a moment - but who can be sure that the Imagination is not the torch-bearer?”
56. “I want a hero: an uncommon want,
When every year and month sends forth a new one.”
57. “Knowledge is not happiness, and science
But an exchange of ignorance for that
Which is another kind of ignorance.”
58. “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!”
59. “Letter writing is the only device for combining solitude with good company.”
60. "Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter. Sermons and soda water the day after."
61. "Life's enchanted cup sparkles near the brim."
62. “Love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey.”
63. "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."
64. “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.”
65. "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."
66. “Man's love is of man's life a thing apart,
'Tis woman's whole existence: man may range
The court, camp, church, the vessel, and the mart,
Sword, gown, gain, glory, offer in exchange
Pride, fame, ambition, to fill up his heart,
And few there are whom these cannot estrange;
Men have all these resources, we but one,
To love again, and be again undone.”
67. “Man!
Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear.”
68. ”Moon of the sleepless! Melancholy star!
Whose tearful beam glows tremulously far,
That show'st the darkness thou canst not dispel,
How like art thou to joy remembered well!
So gleams the past, the light of other days,
Which shines, but warms not with its powerless rays;
A night-beam Sorrow watcheth to behold,
Distinct, but distant - clear, but oh, how cold!”
69. “My sun sets to rise again.”
70. "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."
71. “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.”
72. “Nor ear can hear nor tongue can tell
The tortures of that inward hell!”
73. “Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure;
Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure.”
74. “Oh Love! young Love! bound in thy rosy band,
Let sage or cynic prattle as he will,
These hours, and only these, redeem Life's years of ill.”
75. “O! that the Desert were my dwelling place,
With one fair Spirit for my minister,
That I might all forget the human race,
And, hating no one, love but only her!”
76. “Oh Time! the beautifier of the dead, adorer of the ruin, comforter and only healer when the heart hath bled... Time, the avenger!”
77. “Oh, who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried?”
78. “Our life is two-fold; sleep hath its own world,
A boundary between the things misnamed
Death and existence.”
79. "Out of chaos God made a world, and out of high passions comes a people."
80. “Passion is the element in which we live; without it, we hardly vegetate.”
81. “Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes sin's a pleasure.”
82. "Science is but the exchange of ignorance for that which is another kind of ignorance."
83. “She knew she was by him beloved,--she knew
For quickly comes such knowledge, that his heart
Was darken'd with her shadow.”
84. “She walks in Beauty, like the night
Of cloudness climes and starry skies,
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven and gaudy day denies.”
85. "Sleep hath it's own world, - And a wide realm of wild reality. - And dreams in their development have breath, - And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy."
86. “Society is now one polished horde, / Formed of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored.”
87. “Sofas 'twas half a sin to sit upon,
So costly were they; carpets, every stitch
Of workmanship so rare, they make you wish
You could glide o'er them like a golden fish.”
88. “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.”
89. “So sweet the blush of bashfulness,
E'en pity scarce can wish it less!”
90. “Sweet is revenge - especially to women.”
91. “Tempted fate will leave the loftiest star.”
92. “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.”
93. “The cold in clime are cold in blood,
Their love can scarce deserve the name.”
94. “The dust we tread upon was once alive.”
95. “The "good old times" --
all times when old are good.”
96. "The heart will break, but broken live on."
97. “The languages, especially the dead,
The sciences, and most of all the abstruse,
The arts, at least all such as could be said
To be the most remote from common use,
In all these he was much and deeply read.”
98. “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.”
99. “The law of heaven and earth is life for life.”
100. “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! the eye was in itself a Soul!”
101. “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.”
102. "The power of Thought, - the magic of the Mind!"
103. "The reading or non-reading a book will never keep down a single petticoat."
104. “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:
Their earth is but an echo of the spheres.”
105. "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."
106. “There's naught, no doubt, so much the spirit calms as rum and true religion.”
107. "There is no instinct like that of the heart."
108. “There is something Pagan in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything.”
109. “The sword outwears its sheath, and the soul wears out the breast. And the heart must pause to breathe, and love itself have rest.”
110. “The tree of knowledge is not that of life.”
111. “The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The Moon, their Mistress, had expired 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.”
112. "Think not I am what I appear."
113. "This sort of adoration of the real is but a heightening of the beau ideal."
114. “Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.”
115. "Though sages may pour out their wisdom's treasure, there is no sterner moralist than pleasure."
116. “'Tis strange - but true; for truth is always strange;
Stranger than fiction.”
117. ”'Tis very certain the desire of life prolongs it.”
118. "To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell,
To slowly trace the forest's shady scene,
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been;"
119. ”To withdraw myself from myself has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive in scribbling at all.”
120. "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!"
121. "What a strange thing man is; and what a stranger thing woman."
122. “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.”
123. ”When Newton saw an apple fall, he found ...
A mode of proving that the earth turnd round
In a most natural whirl, called gravitation;
And thus is the sole mortal who could grapple
Since Adam, with a fall or with an apple.”
124. “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.”
125. "When we think we lead we are most led."
126. "Where there is mystery, it is generally suspected there must also be evil."
127. “Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine,
And all, save the spirit of man, is divine?”
128. “Who doth not feel, until his failing sight
Faints into dimness with its own delight,
His changing cheek, his sinking heart confess,
The might--the majesty of Loveliness?”
129. “Who loves, raves--'tis youth's frenzy--but the cure Is bitterer still.”
130. “Who surpasses or subdues mankind, must look down on the hate of those below.”
131. “Why did she love him? Curious fool!--be still--
Is human love the growth of human will?”
132. "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?"
133. “Years steal
Fire from the mind as vigour from the limb,
And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.”
134. "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."
135. “Yet even her tyranny had such a grace,
The women pardoned all, except her face.”
136. “Yet he was jealous, though he did not show it,
For jealousy dislikes the world to know it.”