Quotations III

"No ashes are lighter than those of incense, and few things burn out sooner."

"There is delight in singing, though none hear beside the singer."

"Many laws as certainly make bad men, as bad men make many laws."

"We cannot be contented because we are happy, and we cannot be happy because we are contented."

"A solitude is the audience-chamber of God."

Walter Savage Landor

Walter Savage Landor was an English writer, poet, and dramatist. He is best known for his prose work, the 'Imaginary Conversations,' but also wrote numerous poems and plays. Landor had a tempestuous character and often found himself in conflict with authorities and contemporaries. Despite his combative nature, he was highly regarded by other literary figures such as Charles Dickens and Robert Browning. His works reflect his classical education and strong individualism.

Walter Savage Landor

Defiance

Walter Savage Landor, Simple Poetry

The Fault Is Not Mine

Walter Savage Landor, Simple Poetry

Death Stands Above Me, Whispering Low

Walter Savage Landor, Simple Poetry

To Wordsworth

Walter Savage Landor, Simple Poetry

English

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Quotations VI

"My thoughts are my company; I can bring them together, select them, detain them, dismiss them."

"The wise become as the unwise in the enchanted chambers of Power, whose lamps make every face the same colour."

"We often fancy that we suffer from ingratitude, while in reality we suffer from self-love."

"Goodness does not more certainly make men happy than happiness makes them good."

"Everything that looks to the future elevates human nature. Never is life so low or so little as when occupied with the present."

"Men, like nails, lose their usefulness when they lose their direction and begin to bend."

"Prose on certain occasions can bear a great deal of poetry; on the other hand, poetry sinks and swoons under a moderate weight of prose."

"Be always displeased at wha...

Walter Savage Landor

Quotations II

"There is no easy path leading out of life, and few easy ones that lie within it."

"The flame of anger, bright and brief, sharpens the barb of love."

"Delay in justice is injustice."

"Everything that looks to the future elevates human nature."

"I strove with none; for none was worth my strife."

"No thoroughly occupied person was ever found really miserable."

Walter Savage Landor

Quotations V

"We think that we suffer from ingratitude, while in reality we suffer from self-love."

"The writing of the wise are the only riches our posterity cannot squander."

"We are no longer happy so soon as we wish to be happier."

"Consult duty not events."

"A man's vanity tells him what is honor, a man's conscience what is justice."

"Every sect is a moral check on its neighbour. Competition is as wholesome in religion as in commerce."

"In argument, truth always prevails finally; in politics, falsehood always."

"An ingenuous mind feels in unmerited praise the bitterest reproof."

"Truth, like the juice of the poppy, in small quantities, calms men; in larger, heats and irritates them, and is attended by fatal consequences in excess."

"I warmed both ha...

Walter Savage Landor

Quotations I

"Wrong is but falsehood put in practice."

"The Siren waits thee, singing song for song."

"Music is God's gift to man, the only art of Heaven given to earth, the only art of earth we take to Heaven."

"There is nothing on earth divine except humanity."

"We talk on principal, but act on motivation."

Walter Savage Landor

Quotations IV

"Ambition is but avarice on stilts, and masked."

"Great men lose somewhat of their greatness by being near us; ordinary men gain much."

"People, like nails, lose their effectiveness when they lose direction and begin to bend."

"Great men always pay deference to greater."

"Study is the bane of childhood, the oil of youth, the indulgence of adulthood, and a restorative in old age."

Walter Savage Landor

To Robert Browning

There is delight in singing, tho' none hear
Beside the singer; and there is delight
In praising, tho' the praiser sit alone
And see the prais'd far off him, far above.
Shakspeare is not our poet, but the world's,
Therefore on him no speech! and brief for thee,
Browning! Since Chaucer was alive and hale,
No man hath walkt along our roads with step
So active, so inquiring eye, or tongue
So varied in discourse. But warmer climes
Give brighter plumage, stronger wing: the breeze
Of Alpine highths thou playest with, borne on
Beyond Sorrento and Amalfi, where
The Siren waits thee, singing song for song.

Walter Savage Landor