Alfred Lord Tennyson Quotations

'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering, 'It will be happier.'

My strength is as the strength of ten, because my heart is pure.

Love is the only gold.

No man ever got very high by pulling other people down. The intelligent merchant does not knock his competitors. The sensible worker does not work those who work with him. Don't knock your friends. Don't knock your enemies. Don't knock yourself.

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

And out of darkness came the hands that reach thro' nature, moulding men.

Who is wise in love, love most, say least.

Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

Sin is too stupid to see beyond itself.

The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.

Ring out the false, ring in the true.

I must lose myself in action, lest I wither in despair.

A lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies.

Words, like nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within.

All experience is an arch wherethrough gleams that untravelled world whose margin fades for ever and for ever when I move.

A smile abroad is often a scowl at home.

Such a one do I remember, whom to look at was love.

Shape your heart to front the hour, but dream not that the hours will last.

Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?

Better not be at all than not be noble.

There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds.

Ours not to reason why, ours but to do and die.

Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control; these three alone lead one to sovereign power.

So many worlds, so much to do, so little done, such things to be.

I am a part of all that I have met.

We cannot be kind to each other here for even an hour. We whisper, and hint, and chuckle and grin at our brother's shame; however you take it we men are a little breed.

Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.

By blood a king, in heart a clown.

A day may sink or save a realm.

Theirs is not to make reply: Theirs is not to reason why: Theirs is but to do and die.

Men at most differ as Heaven and Earth, but women, worst and best, as Heaven and Hell.

He makes no friends who never made a foe.

A sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier times.

What rights are those that dare not resist for them?

The same words conceal and declare the thoughts of men.

In the long years liker they must grow; The man be more of woman, she of man.

I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time.

There's no glory like those who save their country.

That loss is common would not make My own less bitter, rather more: Too common! Never morning wore To evening, but some heart did break.

More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.

It's better to have tried and failed than to live life wondering what would've happened if I had tried

Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land; Ring in the Christ that is to be.

The old order changes yielding place to new.

Love's arms were wreathed about the neck of Hope, And Hope kiss'd Love, and Love drew in her breath In that close kiss and drank her whisper'd tales. They said that Love would die when Hope was gone. And Love mourn'd long, and sorrow'd after Hope; At last she sought out Memory, and they trod The same old paths where Love had walked with Hope, And Memory fed the soul of Love with tears.

We are all a part of every person we have ever met.

Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace;Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul,While the stars burn, the moons increase,And the great ages onward roll. Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet. Nothing comes to thee new or strange. Sleep full of rest from head to feet;Lie still, dry dust, secure of change.

If I had a flower for every time I thought of you...I could walk through my garden forever.

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.

...and our spirits rushed together at the touching of the lips.

There has fallen a splendid tear From the passion-flower at the gate. She is coming, my dove, my dear; She is coming, my life, my fate; The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near;" And the white rose weeps, "She is late;" The larkspur listens, "I hear; I hear;" And the lily whispers, "I wait."

the shell must break before the bird can fly.

I can't sleep without knowing there's hope. Half the night I waste in sighs. In a wakeful doze I sorrow. For the hands, for the lips... the eyes. For the meeting of tomorrow.

if you don't concentrate on what you are doing then the thing that you are doing is not what you are thinking.

Battering the gates of heaven with the storms of prayer.

Love lieth deep; Love dwells not in lip-depths; Love laps his wings on either side the heart Absorbing all the incense of sweet thoughts, So that they pass not to the shrine of sound.

Speak to Him, thou, for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet- Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.

O love, O fire! once he drew With one long kiss my whole soul through My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.

The greater man the greater courtesy.

Her eyes are homes of silent prayers.

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depths of some devine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy autumn fields, And thinking of the days that are no more.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind, for those that were here we see no more.

And men, whose reason long was blind, From cells of madness unconfined, Oft lose whole years of darker mind.

Hope Smiles from the threshold of the year to come, Whispering 'it will be happier'...

I remain Mistress of mine own self and mine own soul

The still affection of the heart Became an outward breathing type, That into stillness past again, And left a want unknown before; Although the loss had brought us pain, That loss but made us love the more.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end, to rust unburnished, not to shine in use! As though to breathe were life.

My life has crept so long on a broken wing Through cells of madness, haunts of horror and fear, That I come to be grateful at last for a little thing.

Silence, beautiful voice.

Evolution ever climbing after some ideal good, And Reversion ever dragging Evolution in the mud.

Blind and naked ignorance delivers brawling judgments, unashamed, on all things all day long

You may tell me that my hand and foot are only imaginary symbols of my existence. I could believe you, but you never, never can convince me that the I is not an eternal reality, and that the spiritual is not the true and real part of me.

Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true.

My doom is, I love thee still. Let no man dream but that I love thee still.

Oh that it were possible, After long grief and pain, To find the arms of my true love, Around me once again

I loved you, and my love had no return, And therefore my true love has been my death.

She is coming, my own, my sweet; Were it ever so airy a tread, My heart would hear her and beat, Were it earth in an earthly bed; My dust would hear her and beat, Had I lain for a century dead; Would start and tremble under her feet, And blossom in purple and red.

If I make dark my countenance, I shut my life from happier chance.

And blessings on the falling out That all the more endears, When we fall out with those we love And kiss again with tears!

Short swallow-flights of song, that dip Their wings in tears, and skim away.

Happy he With such a mother! faith in womankind Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high Comes easy to him; and tho' he trip and fall, He shall not blind his soul with clay.

Life is brief but love is LONG .

You, methinks you think you love me well; For me, I love you somewhat; rest: and Love Should have some rest and pleasure in himself, Not ever be too curious for a boon, Too prurient for a proof against the grain Of him ye say ye love: but Fame with men, Being but ampler means to serve mankind, Should have small rest or pleasure in herself, But work as vassal to the larger love, That dwarfs the petty love of one to one.

Tis held that sorrow makes us wise.

Sweet is true love, though given in vain.

A still small voice spake unto me, 'Thou art so full of misery, Were it not better not to be?

The world which credits what is done is cold to all that might have been.

I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage, The linnet born within the cage, That never knew the summer woods: I envy not the beast that takes His license in the field of time, Unfetter’d by the sense of crime, To whom a conscience never wakes; Nor, what may count itself as blest, The heart that never plighted troth But stagnates in the weeds of sloth; Nor any want-begotten rest. I hold it true, whate’er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; ‘Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.

When you meet triumph or disaster, treat these imposters alike.

The parting of a husband and wife is like the cleaving of a heart; one half will flutter here, one there.

Love will conquer at the last.

I am going a long way With these thou seëst-if indeed I go (For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)- To the island-valley of Avilion, Where falls not hail or rain or any snow, Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea, Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.

He is all fault who has no fault at all.

Better not to be at all Than not to be noble.

Only reapers, reaping early In among the bearded barley, Hear a song that echoes cheerly From the river winding clearly, Down to towered Camelot.

We love but while we may; And therefore is my love so large for thee, Seeing it is not bounded save by love.

The long mechanic pacings to and fro, The set, gray life, and apathetic end.

My purpose holds to sail beyond the sunset and the baths of all the Western stars until I die.

As love, if love be perfect, casts out fear, so hate, if hate be perfect, casts out fear.

For this is England's greatest son, He that gain'd a hundred fights, And never lost an English gun.