Lord Byron Quotes

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About Lord Byron

George Gordon (Noel) Byron, 6th Baron Byron (January 22 1788 – April 19 1824), generally known as Lord Byron, was an English poet and leading figure in Romanticism. He was the father of the mathematician Ada Lovelace.

Born: January 22nd, 1788

Died: April 19th, 1824

Categories: English poets, Scottish poets, Romantic poets, 1820s deaths, Vegetarians

Quotes: 168 sourced quotes total (includes 17 about)

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She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless 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 to gaudy day denies.
Though the night was made for loving, And the day returns too soon, Yet we'll go no more a roving By the light of the moon.
So, we'll go no more a roving So late into the night, Though the heart be still as loving, And the moon be still as bright.
The poor dog, in life the firmest friend, The first to welcome, foremost to defend.
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.
Mad, bad and dangerous to know.
For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast.
For the sword outwears its sheath, And the soul wears out the breast, And the heart must pause to breathe, And love itself have rest.
Near this spot Are deposited the Remains of one Who possessed Beauty without Vanity, Strength without Insolence, Courage without Ferocity, And all the virtues of Man, without his Vices. This Praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery If inscribed over human ashes, Is but a just tribute to the Memory of BOATSWAIN, a DOG
They never fail who die In a great cause.
Lord Byron
Marino Faliero, Act II, Scene 2, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
• Source: Wikiquote: "Lord Byron" (Quotes)
Friendship is Love without his wings.
Lord Byron
L'Amitié est l'Amour sans Ailes, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
• Source: Wikiquote: "Lord Byron" (Quotes)
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!
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!
The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
I awoke one morning and found myself famous.
Lord Byron
• Memorandum reference to the instantaneous success of Childe Harold and quoted in Letters and Journals of Lord Byron by Thomas Moore (1830), chapter 14
• Source: Wikiquote: "Lord Byron" (Quotes)
Farewell! For in that word, that fatal word,—howe'er We promise, hope, believe,—there breathes despair.
Seek out — less often sought than found — A Soldier's Grave, for thee the best; Then look around and choose thy Ground, And take thy Rest.
With just enough of learning to misquote.
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
There 's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away.
Lord Byron
Stanzas for Music (March 1815), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
• Source: Wikiquote: "Lord Byron" (Quotes)
Friendship may, and often does, grow into love, but love never subsides into friendship.
There be none of Beauty's daughters With a magic like thee; And like music on the waters Is thy sweet voice to me.
He left a corsair's name to other times, Linked with one virtue, and a thousand crimes.
Lord Byron
• Canto III, stanza 24; this can be compared to: "Hannibal, as he had mighty virtues, so had he many vices; he had two distinct persons in him", Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, "Democritus to the Reader"
• Source: Wikiquote: "Lord Byron" (Quotes, The Corsair (1814))
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.
The blind old man of Scio's rocky isle.
The power of thought,—the magic of the mind!
The love where Death has set his seal, Nor age can chill, nor rival steal, Nor falsehood disavow.
My boat is on the shore, And my bark is on the sea; But, before I go, Tom Moore. Here's a double health to thee!
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.
Hope withering fled, and Mercy sighed farewell!
Oh who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried.
Lord Byron
• Canto I, stanza 1; this can be compared to: "To all nations their empire will be dreadful, because their ships will sail wherever billows roll or winds can waft them", Dalrymple, Memoirs, vol. iii, p. 152; "Wherever waves can roll, and winds can blow", Charles Churchill, The Farewell, Line 38
• Source: Wikiquote: "Lord Byron" (Quotes, The Corsair (1814))
Maid of Athens, ere we part, Give, oh give me back my heart!
I'll publish right or wrong: Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.
Shrine of the mighty! can it be That this is all remains of thee?
Mark! where his carnage and his conquests cease! He makes a solitude, and calls it — peace!
Lord Byron
• Canto II, stanza 20. Here Byron is using an adaptation of a quote from Agricola by the Roman historian Tacitus (c. 30). The original words in the text are Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant (To robbery, slaighter, plunder, they give the lying name of empire; they make a wilderness, and call it peace). This has also been reported as Solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant (They make solitude, which they call peace)
• Source: Wikiquote: "Lord Byron" (Quotes, The Bride of Abydos (1813): Text at readytogoebooks.com.)
Heart on her lips, and soul within her eyes, Soft as her clime, and sunny as her skies.
And thou wert lovely to the last, Extinguish'd, not decay'd; As stars that shoot along the sky Shine brightest as they fall from high.
It is the hour when from the boughs The nightingale's high note is heard; It is the hour when lovers' vows Seem sweet in every whisper'd word.
Lord of himself,—that heritage of woe!
Lord Byron
Lara, Canto I, Stanza 2, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
• Source: Wikiquote: "Lord Byron" (Quotes)
There was a laughing devil in his sneer.
Old man! ’tis not so difficult to die.
The dust we tread upon was once alive.
The best of prophets of the future is the past.
The cold in clime are cold in blood, Their love can scarce deserve the name.
Who killed John Keats? "I," says the Quarterly, So savage and Tartarly; "'Twas one of my feats."
In the desert a fountain is springing, In the wide waste there still is a tree, And a bird in the solitude singing, Which speaks to my spirit of thee.
Lord Byron
Stanzas to Augusta (1816), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
• Source: Wikiquote: "Lord Byron" (Quotes)
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.
By all that's good and glorious.
Perverts the Prophets and purloins the Psalms.
Hands promiscuously applied, Round the slight waist, or down the glowing side.
Better to sink beneath the shock Than moulder piecemeal on the rock.
Sublime tobacco! which from east to west Cheers the tar's labor or the Turkman's rest.
No words suffice the secret soul to show, For truth denies all eloquence to woe.
She was his life, The ocean to the river of his thoughts, Which terminated all.
Lord Byron
• Stanza 2; this can be compared to: "She floats upon the river of his thoughts", Henry W. Longfellow, The Spanish Student, act ii, scene 3
• Source: Wikiquote: "Lord Byron" (Quotes, The Dream (1816))
Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine, And all, save the spirit of man, is divine?
Such hath it been — shall be — beneath the sun The many still must labour for the one!
Knowledge is not happiness, and science But an exchange of ignorance for that Which is another kind of ignorance.
Oh, God! it is a fearful thing To see the human soul take wing In any shape, in any mood.
You speak of Lord Byron and me — there is this great difference between us. He describes what he sees — I describe what I imagine. Mine is the hardest task.
About Lord Byron
• John Keats, letter to George and Georgiana Keats (September 1819)
• Source: Wikiquote: "Lord Byron" (Quotes about Lord Byron: Alphabetized by author )
You are the fools, not I — for I did dwell With a deep thought, and with a softened eye, On that Old Sexton's natural homily, In which there was Obscurity and Fame, The Glory and the Nothing of a Name.
Where may the wearied eye repose When gazing on the Great; Where neither guilty glory glows, Nor despicable state? Yes — one — the first — the last — the best — The Cincinnatus of the West, Whom envy dared not hate, Bequeath'd the name of Washington, To make man blush there was but one!
What's drinking? A mere pause from thinking!
The fatal facility of the octosyllabic verse.
Besides, they always smell of bread and butter.
I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
I only know we loved in vain; I only feel — farewell! farewell!
Hark! to the hurried question of despair: "Where is my child?"—an echo answers, "Where?"
Lord Byron
• Canto II, stanza 27; this can be compared to: I came to the place of my birth, and cried, "The friends of my youth, where are they?" And echo answered, "Where are they?", Anonymous Arabic manuscript
• Source: Wikiquote: "Lord Byron" (Quotes, The Bride of Abydos (1813): Text at readytogoebooks.com.)
The "good old times" — all times when old are good — Are gone.
I die — but first I have possessed, And come what may, I have been blessed.
Whose game was empires and whose stakes were thrones, Whose table earth, whose dice were human bones.
Lord Byron
Age of Bronze, Stanza 3, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
• Source: Wikiquote: "Lord Byron" (Quotes)
For freedom's battle, once begun, Bequeath'd by bleeding sire to son, Though baffled oft, is ever won.
And to his eye There was but one beloved face on earth, And that was shining on him.
My hair is grey, but not with years, Nor grew it white In a single night, As men's have grown from sudden fears.
Be thou the rainbow to the storms of life, The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, And tints to-morrow with prophetic ray!
The keenest pangs the wretched find Are rapture to the dreary void, The leafless desert of the mind, The waste of feelings unemployed.
And they were canopied by the blue sky, So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful That God alone was to be seen in heaven.
And lovelier things have mercy shown To every failing but their own, And every woe a tear can claim Except an erring sister's shame.
A light broke in upon my brain, — It was the carol of a bird; It ceased, and then it came again, The sweetest song ear ever heard.
Mont Blanc is the Monarch of mountains; They crowned him long ago, On a throne of rocks — in a robe of clouds – With a Diadem of Snow.
He who hath bent him o'er the dead Ere the first day of death is fled,— The first dark day of nothingness, The last of danger and distress, Before decay's effacing fingers Have swept the lines where beauty lingers.
I love the language, that soft bastard Latin, Which melts like kisses from a female mouth, And sounds as if it should be writ on satin, With syllables which breathe of the sweet South, And gentle liquids gliding all so pat in, That not a single accent seems uncouth, Like our harsh northern whistling, grunting guttural, Which we're obliged to hiss, and spit, and sputter all.
Folly loves the martyrdom of fame.
I loved my country, and I hated him.
Lord Byron
The Vision of Judgment, lxxxiii, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
• Source: Wikiquote: "Lord Byron" (Quotes)
And both were young, and one was beautiful.
Soprano, basso, even the contra-alto, Wished him five fathom under the Rialto.
He seems To have seen better days, as who has not Who has seen yesterday?
A man must serve his time to every trade Save censure — critics are ready-made.
For most men (till by losing rendered sager) Will back their own opinions by a wager.
How my soul hates This language, Which makes life itself a lie, Flattering dust with eternity.
She walks the waters like a thing of life, And seems to dare the elements to strife.
A great poet belongs to no country; his works are public property, and his Memoirs the inheritance of the public.
Lord Byron makes man after his own image, woman after his own heart; the one is a capricious tyrant, the other a yielding slave.
About Lord Byron
• William Hazlitt, "Lord Byron," The Spirit of the Age (1825)
• Source: Wikiquote: "Lord Byron" (Quotes about Lord Byron: Alphabetized by author )
Farewell! if ever fondest prayer For other's weal avail'd on high, Mine will not all be lost in air, But waft thy name beyond the sky.
Because He is all-powerful, must all-good, too, follow? I judge but by the fruits—and they are bitter— Which I must feed on for a fault not mine.
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.
Such is the aspect of this shore; 'T is Greece, but living Greece no more! So coldly sweet, so deadly fair, We start, for soul is wanting there.
Yet truth will sometimes lend her noblest fires, And decorate the verse herself inspires: This fact, in virtue's name, let Crabbe attest,— Though Nature's sternest painter, yet the best.
"Bring forth the horse!" — the horse was brought; In truth, he was a noble steed, A Tartar of the Ukraine breed, Who look'd as though the speed of thought Were in his limbs.
His heart was one of those which most enamour us, Wax to receive, and marble to retain: He was a lover of the good old school, Who still become more constant as they cool.
Lord Byron
• Stanza 34; this can be compared to: "My heart is wax to be moulded as she pleases, but enduring as marble to retain", Miguel de Cervantes, The Little Gypsy
• Source: Wikiquote: "Lord Byron" (Quotes, Beppo (1818))
From the poetry of Lord Byron they drew a system of ethics, compounded of misanthropy and voluptuousness, a system in which the two great commandments were, to hate your neighbour, and to love your neighbour's wife.
About Lord Byron
• Thomas Babington Macaulay, in "Moore's Life of Lord Byron" (June 1830), from Critical and Historical Essays Contributed to the Edinburgh Review (1843), vol. I
• Source: Wikiquote: "Lord Byron" (Quotes about Lord Byron: Alphabetized by author )
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!
Lord Byron
• Canto I, stanza 1; this can be compared to: "Know'st thou the land where the lemon-trees bloom, / Where the gold orange glows in the deep thicket's gloom, / Where a wind ever soft from the blue heaven blows, / And the groves are of laurel and myrtle and rose!" Goethe, Wilhelm Meister
• Source: Wikiquote: "Lord Byron" (Quotes, The Bride of Abydos (1813): Text at readytogoebooks.com.)
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.
If they had said that the sun or the moon had gone out of the heavens, it could not have struck me with the idea of a more awful and dreary blank in creation than the words: "Byron is dead!"
About Lord Byron
• Jane Welsh Carlyle, letter to Thomas Carlyle (20 May 1824)
• Source: Wikiquote: "Lord Byron" (Quotes about Lord Byron: Alphabetized by author )
Divine in hookas, glorious in a pipe When tipp'd with amber, mellow, rich, and ripe; Like other charmers, wooing the caress More dazzlingly when daring in full dress; Yet thy true lovers more admire by far Thy naked beauties—give me a cigar!
Who hath not proved how feebly words essay To fix one spark of beauty's heavenly ray? 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?
I live, but live to die: and, living, see nothing to make death hateful, save an innate clinging, a loathsome and yet all invincible instinct of life, which I abhor, as I despise myself, yet cannot overcome — and so I live. Would I had never lived!
'Twas thine own genius gave the final blow, And help'd to plant the wound that laid thee low: 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.
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.
She was a form of life and light That seen, became a part of sight, And rose, where'er I turn'd mine eye, The morning-star of memory! Yes, love indeed is light from heaven; A spark of that immortal fire With angels shared, by Alla given, To lift from earth our low desire.
It would be difficult, perhaps, to find the annals of a nation less stained with crimes than those of the Armenians, whose virtues have been those of peace, and their vices those of compulsion. But whatever may have been their destiny — and it has been bitter — whatever it may be in future, their country must ever be one of the most interesting on the globe.
The news came to the village — the dire news which spread across the land, filling men's hearts with consternation — that Byron was dead. Tennyson was then about a boy of fifteen."Byron was dead! I thought the whole world was at an end," he once said, speaking of those bygone days. "I thought everything was over and finished for everyone — that nothing else mattered. I remembered I walked out alone, and carved 'Byron is dead' into the sandstone."
Titan! to whom immortal eyes The sufferings of mortality Seen in their sad reality, Were not as things that gods despise; What was thy pity's recompense? A silent suffering, and intense; The rock, the vulture, and the chain, All that the proud can feel of pain, The agony they do not show, The suffocating sense of woe, Which speaks but in its loneliness, And then is jealous lest the sky Should have a listener, nor will sigh Until its voice is echoless.
But take this with thee: if I was not form'd To prize a love like thine, a mind like thine, Nor dote even on thy beauty — as I've doted On lesser charms, for no cause save that such Devotion was a duty, and I hated All that look'd like a chain for me or others (This even rebellion must avouch); yet hear These words, perhaps among my last — that none E'er valued more thy virtues, though he knew not To profit by them…
The careful pilot of my proper woe.
Lord Byron
Epistle to Augusta, Stanza 3, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
• Source: Wikiquote: "Lord Byron" (Quotes)
Born in the garret, in the kitchen bred.
When all of genius which can perish dies.
Better to err with Pope, than shine with Pye.
Who track the steps of glory to the grave.
What say you to such a supper with such a woman?
Lord Byron
Note to a Letter on Bowles's Strictures, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
• Source: Wikiquote: "Lord Byron" (Quotes)
Yet in my lineaments they trace Some features of my father's face.
Always looking at himself in mirrors to make sure he was sufficiently outrageous.
About Lord Byron
• Enoch Powell, Sunday Times (8 May 1988)
• Source: Wikiquote: "Lord Byron" (Quotes about Lord Byron: Alphabetized by author )
When we two parted In silence and tears, Half brokenhearted, To sever for years.
Sighing that Nature formed but one such man, And broke the die, in molding Sheridan.
O Mirth and Innocence! O milk and water! Ye happy mixtures of more happy days.
The world is rid of Lord Byron, but the deadly slime of his touch still remains.
About Lord Byron
• John Constable, letter to the Rev. John Fisher (May 1824)
• Source: Wikiquote: "Lord Byron" (Quotes about Lord Byron: Alphabetized by author )
Jack was embarrassed — never hero more, And as he knew not what to say, he swore.
[Armenian] is a rich language, however, and would amply repay any one the trouble of learning it.
Lord Byron is great only as a poet; as soon as he reflects, he is a child.
About Lord Byron
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, said in conversation (18 January 1825) with Johann Peter Eckermann, quoted in Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe (1836)
• Source: Wikiquote: "Lord Byron" (Quotes about Lord Byron: Alphabetized by author )
'Tis pleasure, sure, to see one's name in print; A book's a book, although there's nothing in 't.
But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we, Half dust, half deity, alike unfit To sink or soar.
Fare thee well! and if forever, Still forever, fare thee well: Even though unforgiving, never 'Gainst thee shall my heart rebel.
If I could envy any man for successful ill nature I should envy Lord Byron for his skill in satirical nomenclature.
About Lord Byron
• Sydney Smith, letter to Elizabeth Vassal Fox, Lady Holland (June 1810)
• Source: Wikiquote: "Lord Byron" (Quotes about Lord Byron: Alphabetized by author )
If I am fool, it is, at least, a doubting one; and I envy no one the certainty of his self-approved wisdom.
I never heard a single expression of fondness for him fall from the lips of any of those who knew him well.
About Lord Byron
• Thomas Babington Macaulay, letter to Hannah and Margaret Macaulay (7 June 1831)
• Source: Wikiquote: "Lord Byron" (Quotes about Lord Byron: Alphabetized by author )
Whate'er I may have been, or am, doth rest between Heaven and myself; I shall not choose a mortal To be my mediator.
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.
Were't the last drop in the well, As I gasp'd upon the brink, Ere my fainting spirit fell 'T is to thee that I would drink.
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!
Patience! Hence—that word was made For brutes of burthen, not for birds of prey; Preach it to mortals of a dust like thine,— I am not of thine order.
Whatever he does, he must do in a more decided and daring manner than any one else; he lounges with extravagance, and yawns so as to alarm the reader!
About Lord Byron
• William Hazlitt, "Lord Byron," The Spirit of the Age (1825)
• Source: Wikiquote: "Lord Byron" (Quotes about Lord Byron: Alphabetized by author )
As the liberty lads o'er the sea Bought their freedom, and cheaply, with blood, So we, boys, we Shall die fighting or live free, And down with all kings but King Ludd!
And if we do but watch the hour, There never yet was human power Which could evade, if unforgiven, The patient search and vigil long Of him who treasures up a wrong.
The light of love, the purity of grace, The mind, the music breathing from her face, 19 The heart whose softness harmonized the whole,— And oh, that eye was in itself a soul!
Lord Byron
• Canto I, Stanza 6; this can be compared to: "The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love", Thomas Gray, The Progress of Poesy I. 3, line 16; also: "Oh, could you view the melody / Of every grace / And music of her face", Richard Lovelace, Orpheus to Beasts; "There is music in the beauty, and the silent note which Cupid strikes, far sweeter than the sound of an instrument", Thomas Browne, Religio Medici, Part ii, Section ix
• Source: Wikiquote: "Lord Byron" (Quotes, The Bride of Abydos (1813): Text at readytogoebooks.com.)
Send me no more reviews of any kind. — I will read no more of evil or good in that line. — Walter Scott has not read a review of himself for thirteen years.
Where is he, the champion and the child Of all that's great or little, wise or wild; Whose game was empires, and whose stakes were thrones; Whose table earth — whose dice were human bones?
Our Lord Byron — the fascinating — faulty — childish — philosophical being — daring the world — docile to a private circle — impetuous and indolent — gloomy and yet more gay than any other.
As soon Seek roses in December, ice in June; Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff; Believe a woman or an epitaph, Or any other thing that's false, before You trust in critics, who themselves are sore.
What helps it now, that Byron bore, With haughty scorn which mocked the smart, Through Europe to the Aetolian shore The pageant of his bleeding heart? That thousands counted every groan, And Europe made his woe her own?
About Lord Byron
• Matthew Arnold, "Stanzas from the Grand Chartreuse," Fraser's Magazine (April 1855); reprinted in New Poems (1867)
• Source: Wikiquote: "Lord Byron" (Quotes about Lord Byron: Alphabetized by author )
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.
My mother Earth! And thou fresh breaking Day, and you, ye Mountains, Why are ye beautiful? I cannot love ye. And thou, the bright eye of the universe, That openest over all, and unto all Art a delight—thou shin'st not on my heart.
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.
While Franklin's quiet memory climbs to heaven, Calming the lightning which he thence hath riven, Or drawing from the no less kindled earth Freedom and peace to that which boasts his birth; While Washington's a watchword, such as ne'er Shall sink while there's an echo left to air.
In a room at the end of the garden to this house was a magnificent rocking-horse, which a friend had given my little boy; and Lord Byron, with a childish glee becoming a poet, would ride upon it. Ah! why did he ever ride his Pegasus to less advantage?
About Lord Byron
• Leigh Hunt, Autobiography (1850), vol. II, ch. XV
• Source: Wikiquote: "Lord Byron" (Quotes about Lord Byron: Alphabetized by author )
From my youth upwards My spirit walk'd not with the souls of men, Nor look'd upon the earth with human eyes; The thirst of their ambition was not mine, The aim of their existence was not mine; My joys, my griefs, my passions, and my powers Made me a stranger.
O'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea, Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free, Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam, 22 Survey our empire, and behold our home! These are our realms, no limit to their sway,— Our flag the sceptre all who meet obey.
It still saddens me that Lord Byron, who showed such impatience with the fickle public, wasn't aware of how well the Germans can understand him and how highly they esteem him. With us the moral and political tittle-tattle of the day falls away, leaving the man and the talent standing alone in all their brilliance.
Think'st thou existence doth depend on time? It doth; but actions are our epochs: mine Have made my days and nights imperishable Endless, and all alike, as sands on the shore Innumerable atoms; and one desert Barren and cold, on which the wild waves break, But nothing rests, save carcases and wrecks, Rocks, and the salt-surf weeds of bitterness.
By thy cold breast and serpent smile, By thy unfathom'd gulfs of guile, By that most seeming virtuous eye, By thy shut soul's hypocrisy; By the perfection of thine art Which pass'd for human thine own heart; By thy delight in others' pain, And by thy brotherhood of Cain, I call upon thee! and compel Thyself to be thy proper Hell!
Oh! if thou hast at length Discover'd that my love is worth esteem, I ask no more—but let us hence together, And I — let me say we — shall yet be happy. Assyria is not all the earth—we'll find A world out of our own — and be more bless'd Than I have ever been, or thou, with all An empire to indulge thee.
Tragedy of childhood. Not infrequently, noble-minded and ambitious men have to endure their harshest struggle in childhood, perhaps by having to assert their characters against a low-minded father, who is devoted to pretense and mendacity, or by living, like Lord Byron, in continual struggle with a childish and wrathful mother. If one has experienced such struggles, for the rest of his life he will never get over knowing who has been in reality his greatest and most dangerous enemy.
About Lord Byron
• Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human (1878)
• Source: Wikiquote: "Lord Byron" (Quotes about Lord Byron: Alphabetized by author )
My best! my last friends! Let's not unman each other: part at once: All farewells should be sudden, when for ever, Else they make an eternity of moments, And clog the last sad sands of life with tears. Hence, and be happy: trust me, I am not Now to be pitied; or far more for what Is past than present; — for the future, 'tis In the hands of the deities, if such There be: I shall know soon. Farewell — Farewell.
There is no power in holy men, Nor charm in prayer, nor purifying form Of penitence, nor outward look, nor fast, Nor agony—nor, greater than all these, The innate tortures of that deep despair, Which is remorse without the fear of hell, But all in all sufficient to itself Would make a hell of heaven,—can exorcise From out the unbounded spirit the quick sense Of its own sins, wrongs, sufferance, and revenge Upon itself; there is no future pang Can deal that justice on the self—condemn'd He deals on his own soul.
Oh, Amos Cottle! Phœbus! what a name!
When a man hath no freedom to fight for at home,     Let him combat for that of his neighbours; Let him think of the glories of Greece and of Rome     And get knock'd on the head for his labours. To do good to mankind is the chivalrous plan,     And is always as nobly requited; Then battle for freedom wherever you can.     And, if not shot or hang'd, you'll get knighted.
To be thus— Grey-hair'd with anguish, like these blasted pines, Wrecks of a single winter, barkless, branchless, A blighted trunk upon a cursed root, Which but supplies a feeling to decay— And to be thus, eternally but thus, Having been otherwise! Now furrow'd o'er With wrinkles, plough'd by moments, not by years And hours—all tortured into ages—hours Which I outlive!—Ye toppling crags of ice! Ye avalanches, whom a breath draws down In mountainous o'erwhelming, come and crush me! I hear ye momently above, beneath, Crash with a frequent conflict; but ye pass, And only fall on things that still would live.
Titan! to thee the strife was given Between the suffering and the will, Which torture where they cannot kill; And the inexorable Heaven, And the deaf tyranny of Fate, The ruling principle of Hate, Which for its pleasure doth create The things it may annihilate, Refused thee even the boon to die: The wretched gift eternity Was thine — and thou hast borne it well. All that the Thunderer wrung from thee Was but the menace which flung back On him the torments of thy rack; The fate thou didst so well foresee, But would not to appease him tell; And in thy Silence was his Sentence, And in his Soul a vain repentance, And evil dread so ill dissembled, That in his hand the lightnings trembled.
Thy Godlike crime was to be kind, To render with thy precepts less The sum of human wretchedness, And strengthen Man with his own mind; But baffled as thou wert from high, Still in thy patient energy, In the endurance, and repulse Of thine impenetrable Spirit, Which Earth and Heaven could not convulse, A mighty lesson we inherit: Thou art a symbol and a sign To Mortals of their fate and force; Like thee, Man is in part divine, A troubled stream from a pure source; And Man in portions can foresee His own funereal destiny; His wretchedness, and his resistance, And his sad unallied existence: To which his Spirit may oppose Itself — and equal to all woes, And a firm will, and a deep sense, Which even in torture can decry Its own concenter'd recompense, Triumphant where it dares defy, And making Death a Victory.

End Lord Byron Quotes