Walter Savage Landor Quotations | Page 2

There is only one word of tenderness we could say, which we have not said oftentimes before ; and there is no consolation in it. The happy never say, and never hear said, farewell.

Dignity, in private men and in governments, has been little else than a stately and stiff perseverance in oppression; and spirit, as it is called, little else than the foam of hard-mouthed insolence.

No good writer was ever long neglected; no great man overlooked by men equally great. Impatience is a proof of inferior strength, and a destroyer of what little there may be.

Of all studies, the most delightful and the most useful is biography. The seeds of great events lie near the surface; historians delve too deep for them. No history was ever true. Lives I have read which, if they were not, had the appearance, the interest, and the utility of truth.

Was genius ever ungrateful? Mere talents are dry leaves, tossed up and down by gusts of passion, and scattered and swept away; but, Genius lies on the bosom of Memory, and Gratitude at her feet.

Merit has rarely risen of itself, but a pebble or a twig is often quite sufficient for it to spring from to the highest ascent. There is usually some baseness before there is any elevation.

Moroseness is the evening of turbulence.

Nations, like individuals, interest us in their growth.

Religion is the eldest sister of philosophy: on whatever subjects they may differ, it is unbecoming in either to quarrel, and most so about their inheritance.

Politeness is not always a sign of wisdom; but the want of it always leaves room for a suspicion of folly, if folly and imprudence are the same.

A little praise is good for a shy temper; it teaches it to rely on the kindness of others.

There are proud men of so much delicacy that it almost conceals their pride, and perfectly excuses it.

The religion of Christ is peace and good-will,--the religion of Christendom is war and ill-will.

Be assured that, although men of eminent genius have been guilty of all other vices, none worthy of more than a secondary name has ever been a gamester. Either an excess of avarice or a deficiency of what, in physics, is called excitability, is the cause of it; neither of which can exist in the same bosom with genius, with patriotism, or with virtue.

The happy never say, and never hear said, farewell.

Falsehood is for a season.

Children are what the mothers are.

It is as wise to moderate our belief as our desires.

Cruelty is the highest pleasure to the cruel man; it is his love.

Cruelty, if we consider it as a crime, is the greatest of all; if we consider it as a madness, we are equally justifiable in applying to it the readiest and the surest means of oppression.

Cruelty in all countries is the companion of anger; but there is only one, and never was another on the globe, where she coquets both with anger and mirth.

Democracy is always the work of kings. Ashes, which in themselves are sterile, fertilize the land they are cast upon.

Despotism sits nowhere so secure as under the effigy and ensigns of freedom.

When the mind loses its feeling for elegance, it grows corrupt and groveling, and seeks in the crowd what ought to be found at home.

Consciousness of error is, to a certain extent, a consciousness of understanding; and correction of error is the plainest proof of energy and mastery.

Experience is our only teacher both in war and peace.

Ridicule has followed the vestiges of truth, but never usurped her place.

A good cook is the peculiar gift of the gods. He must be a perfect creature from the brain to the palate, from the palate to the finger's end.

Nothing is pleasanter to me than exploring in a library.

What is reading but silent conversation?

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife. Nature I loved and, next to Nature, Art: I warm'd both hands before the fire of life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart.

Cats like men are flatterers.

Heat and animosity, contest and conflict, may sharpen the wits, although they rarely do; they never strengthen the understanding, clear the perspicacity, guide the judgment, or improve the heart.

Those who are quite satisfied sit still and do nothing; those who are not quite satisfied are the sole benefactors of the world.

Wise or unwise, who doubts for a moment that contentment is the cause of happiness? Yet the inverse is true: we are contented because we are happy, and not happy because we are contented. Well-regulated minds may be satisfied with a small portion of happiness; none can be happy with a small portion of content.

In the hours of distress and misery, the eyes of every mortal turn to friendship; in the hours of gladness and conviviality, what is our want? It is friendship. When the heart overflows with gratitude, or with any other sweet or sacred sentiment, what is the word to which it would give utterance? A friend.

Men universally are ungrateful towards him who instructs them, unless, in the hours or in the intervals of instruction, he presents a sweet-cake to their self-love.

Solitude is the audience-chamber of God.

The moderate are not usually the most sincere, for the same circumspection which makes them moderate makes them likewise retentive of what could give offence.

Delay in justice is injustice.

Clear writers, like fountains, do not seem so deep as they are; the turbid look the most profound.

Avoid, which many grave men have not done, words taken from sacred subjects and from elevated poetry: these we have seen vilely prostituted. Avoid too the society of the barbarians who misemploy them.

Friendship is a vase, which, when it is flawed by heat, or violence, or accident, may as well be broken at once; it can never be trusted after.

As we sometimes find one thing while we are looking for another, so, if truth escaped me, happiness and contentment fell in my way.

This is the pleasantest part of life. Oblivion throws her light coverlet over our infancy; and, soon after we are out of the cradle we forget how soundly we had been slumbering, and how delightful were our dreams. Toil and pleasure contend for us almost the instant we rise from it: and weariness follows whichever has carried us away. We stop awhile, look around us, wonder to find we have completed the circle of existence, fold our arms, and fall asleep again.

When a woman hath ceased to be quite the same to us, it matters little how different she becomes.

The foundation of domestic happiness is faith in the virtue of woman.

Shakespeare is not our poet, but the world's.

Teach him to live unto God and unto thee; and he will discover that women, like the plants in woods, derive their softness and tenderness from the shade.

Wisdom consisteth not in knowing many things, nor even in knowing them thoroughly; but in choosing and in following what conduces the most certainly to our lasting happiness and true glory.

It often comes into my head That we may dream when we are dead, But I am far from sure we do. O that it were so! then my rest Would be indeed among the blest; I should for ever dream of you.

Ah what avails the sceptred race, Ah what the form divine! What every virtue, every grace! Rose Aylmer, all were thine. Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes May weep, but never see, A night of memories and of sighs I consecrate to thee.

A wise man will always be a Christian, because the perfection of wisdom is to know where lies tranquillity of mind and how to attain it, which Christianity teaches.

We are poor, indeed, when we have no half-wishes left us. The heart and the imagination close the shutters the instant they are gone.

Kings play at war unfairly with republics; they can only lose some earth, and some creatures they value as little, while republics lose in every soldier a part of themselves.

Truth sometimes corner unawares upon Caution, and sometimes speaks in public as unconsciously as in a dream.

Every witticism is an inexact thought; that which is perfectly true is imperfectly witty.

Sculpture and painting are moments of life; poetry is life itself.

I have since written what no tide Shall ever wash away, what men Unborn shall read o'er ocean wide And find Ianthe's name agen.

Consult duty not events.

Everything that looks to the future elevates human nature.

There is no eloquence which does not agitate the soul.

How sweet and sacred idleness is!

You should indeed have longer tarried By the roadside before you married.

Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art.

Cruelty is no more the cure of crimes than it is the cure of sufferings; compassion, in the first instance, is good for both; I have known it to bring compunction when nothing else would.

In honest truth, a name given to a man is no better than a skin given to him; what is not natively his own falls off and comes to nothing.

The eyes of critics, whether in commending or carping, are both on one side, like a turbot's.

Not dancing well, I never danced at all--and how grievously has my heart ached when others where in the full enjoyment of that conversation which I had no right even to partake.

I see the rainbow in the sky, the dew upon the grass; I see them, and I ask not why they glimmer or they pass. With folded arms I linger not to call them back; 'twere vain: In this, or in some other spot, I know they'll shine again.

God made the rose out of what was left of woman at the creation. The great difference is, we feel the rose's thorns when we gather it; and the other's when we have had it for some time.

I never did a single wise thing in the whole course of my existence, although I have written many which have been thought so.

Fame often rests at first upon something accidental, and often, too, is swept away, or for a time removed; but neither genius nor glory, is conferred at once, nor do they glimmer and fall, like drops in a grotto, at a shout.

Old trees in their living state are the only things that money cannot command.

Whatever is worthy to be loved for anything is worthy of preservation. A wise and dispassionate legislator, if any such should ever arise among men, will not condemn to death him who has done or is likely to do more service than injury to society. Blocks and gibbets are the nearest objects with legislators, and their business is never with hopes or with virtues.

Fancy is imagination in her youth and adolescence. Fancy is always excursive; imagination, not seldom, is sedate.

No friendship is so cordial or so delicious as that of girl for girl; no hatred so intense and immovable as that of woman for woman.

Virtue is presupposed in friendship.

Little men build up great ones, but the snow colossus soon melts; the good stand under the eye of God, and therefore stand.

The only effect of public punishment is to show the rabble how bravely it can be borne; and that every one who hath lost a toe-nail hath suffered worse.

What is companionship where nothing that improves the intellect is communicated, and where the larger heart contracts itself to the model and dimension of the smaller?

Where power is absent we may find the robe of genius, but we miss the throne.

Political men, like goats, usually thrive best among inequalities.

That which moveth the heart most is the best poetry; it comes nearest unto God, the source of all power.

We enter our studies, and enjoy a society which we alone can bring together. We raise no jealousy by conversing with one in preference to another; we give no offence to the most illustrious by questioning him as long as we will, and leaving him as abruptly. Diversity of opinion raises no tumult in our presence: each interlocutor stands before us, speaks or is silent, and we adjourn or decide the business at our leisure.

It is delightful to kiss the eyelashes of the beloved--is it not? But never so delightful as when fresh tears are on them.

The tomb is the pedestal of greatness. I make a distinction between God's great and the king's great.

A mercantile democracy may govern long and widely; a mercantile aristocracy cannot stand.

It appears to be among the laws of nature, that the mighty of intellect should be pursued and carped by the little, as the solitary flight of one great bird is followed by the twittering petulance of many smaller.

And Modesty, who, when she goes, Is gone for ever.

It is easy to look down on others; to look down on ourselves is the difficulty.

Let me take up your metaphor. Friendship is a vase, which, when it is flawed by heat or violence or accident, may as well be broken at once; it can never be trusted after. The more graceful and ornamental it was, the more clearly do we discern the hopelessness of restoring it to its former state. Coarse stones, if they are fractured, may be cemented again; precious stones, never.

I would recommend a free commerce both of matter and mind. I would let men enter their own churches with the same freedom as their own houses; and I would do it without a homily or graciousness or favor, for tyranny itself is to me a word less odious than toleration.

The sublime is contained in a grain of dust.

Every good writer has much idiom; it is the life and spirit of language.

Fame, they tell you, is air; but without air there is no life for any; without fame there is none for the best.

We fancy that our afflictions are sent us directly from above; sometimes we think it in piety and contrition, but oftener in moroseness and discontent.

There is a vast deal of vital air in loving words.

A smile is ever the most bright and beautiful with a tear upon it. What is the dawn without the dew? The tear is rendered by the smile precious above the smile itself.

Vast objects of remote altitude must be looked at a long while before they are ascertained. Ages are the telescope tubes that must be lengthened out for Shakespeare; and generations of men serve but a single witness to his claims.