George Gordon Byron Quotes

I cannot conceive why people will always mix up my own character and opinions with those of the imaginary beings which, as a poet, I have the right and liberty to draw.

When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy, And the dimpling stream runs laughing by; When the air does laugh with our merry wit, And the green hill laughs with the noise of it.

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?

This was an easy matter with a man Oft in the wrong, and never on his guard; And even the wisest, do the best they can, Have moments, hours, and days, so unprepared, That you might 'brain them with their lady's fan;' And sometimes ladies hit exceeding hard, And fans turn into falchions in fair hands, And why and wherefore no one understands.

There 's music in all things, if men had ears:

Where yet my boys are, and that fatal She,
Their mother, the cold partner who hath brought
Destruction for a dowry - this to see
And feel, and know without repair, hath taught
A bitter lesson; but it leaves me free:
I have not vilely found, nor basely sought,
They made an Exile - not a Slave of me.

And he who lieth there was childless. I have dried the fountain of gentle race..
-Cain

Oh who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried.

There's naught, no doubt, so much the spirit calms as rum and true religion.

I have a great mind to believe in Christianity for the mere pleasure of fancying I may be damned.

I am so changeable, being everything by turns and nothing long - such a strange melange of good and evil.

When we have made our love and gamed our gaming, Drest, voted, shone, and maybe something more; With dandies dined, heard senators declaiming, Seen beauties brought to market by the score, Sad rakes to sadder husbands chastely taming, There's little left but to be bored or bore. Witness those ci-devant jeunes hommes who stem The stream, nor leave the world which leaveth them.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean - roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin - his control
Stops with the shore.

There are two Souls, whose equal flow
In gentle stream so calmly run,
That when they part - they part? - ah no!
They cannot part - those Souls are One.

No more Keats, I entreat: flay him alive; if some of you don't I must skin him myself: there is no bearing the drivelling idiotism of the Mankin.

If I am fool, it is, at least, a doubting one; and I envy no one the certainty of his self-approved wisdom.

What deep wounds ever closed without a scar?

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord.

I should, many a good day, have blown my brains out, but for the recollection that it would have given pleasure to my mother-in-law.

Loathed he in his native land to dwell, Which seemed to him more lone than eremite's sad cell.

Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure;
Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure.

Like the measles, love is most dangerous when it comes late in life.

Old man! 'Tis not difficult to die.

And from his native land resolved to go, And visit scorching climes beyond the sea; With pleasure drugged, he almost longed for woe, And e'en for change of scene would seek the shades below.

All who joy would win
Must share it
Happiness was born a twin.

Ah, monarchs! could ye taste the mirth ye mar, Not in the toils of Glory would ye fret; The hoarse dull drum would sleep, and Man be happy yet.

The light of love, the purity of grace,
The mind, the Music breathing from her face,
The heart whose softness harmonised the whole
And, oh! that eye was in itself a Soul!

but quiet to quick bosoms is a hell.

Hate is by far the greatest pleasure; men love in haste, but detest in leisure.

Be hypocritical, be cautious, be Not what you seem, but always what you see.

Oh could I feel as I have felt,-or be what I have been,
Or weep as I could once have wept, o'er many a vanish'd scene;
As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish though they be,
So midst the wither'd waste of life, those tears would flow to me.

But first, on earth as vampire sent,
Thy corse shall from its tomb be rent,
Then ghastly haunt thy native place,
And suck the blood of all thy race.
There from thy daughter, sister, wife,
At midnight drain the stream of life,
Yet loathe the banquet which perforce
Must feed thy livid living corse.
Thy victims ere they yet expire
Shall know the demon for their sire,
As cursing thee, thou cursing them,
Thy flowers are withered on the stem.

This is to be mortal, And seek the things beyond mortality.

Censure no more shall brand my humble name
The child of passion and the fool of fame

She was like me in lineaments
her eyes
Her hair, her features, all, to the very tone
Even of her voice, they said were like to mine;
But soften'd all, and temper'd into beauty;
She had the same lone thoughts and wanderings,
The quest of hidden knowledge, and a mind
To comprehend the universe: nor these
Alone, but with them gentler powers than mine,
Pity, and smiles, and tears
which I had not;
And tenderness
but that I had for her;
Humility
and that I never had.
Her faults were mine
her virtues were her own
I loved her, and destroy'd her!

Love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey.

Byron's Prometheus becomes symbolic of the human condition in both his mixed divinity and his drive to suffer through the toils of life in a grand effort towards a progressive evolution, whereby the cruel fate of humanity might someday be overcome.

Remember thee! remember thee!
Till Lethe quench life's burning stream
Remorse and shame shall cling to thee,
And haunt thee like a feverish dream!
Remember thee! Aye, doubt it not.
Thy husband too shall think of thee:
By neither shalt thou be forgot,
Thou false to him, thou fiend to me!

But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew, upon a thought produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions think.

Yet, should our feeble efforts nought avail, Should, after all, our best endeavours fail; Still, let some mercy in your bosoms live, And, if you can't applaud, at least forgive.

Sweet to the miser are his glittering heaps,
Sweet to the father is his first-born's birth,
Sweet is revenge
especially to women

All unquiet things,
which stir too strongly the soul's secret springs

The 'good old times' - all times when old are good.

The lapse of ages changes all things - time - language - the earth - the bounds of the sea - the stars of the sky, and everything 'about, around, and underneath' man, except man himself, who has always been and always will be, an unlucky rascal. The infinite variety of lives conduct but to death, and the infinity of wishes lead but to disappointment. All the discoveries which have yet been made have multiplied little but existence.

Tis long since I beheld that eye
Which gave me bliss or misery;
And I have striven, but in vain,
Never to think of it again:
For though I fly from Albion,
I still can only love but one.
As some lone bird, without a mate,
My weary heart is desolate;
I look around, and cannot trace
One friendly smile or welcome face,
And ev'n in crowds am still alone,
Because I cannot love but one.
And I will cross the whitening foam,
And I will seek a foreign home;
Till I forget a false fair face,
I ne'er shall find a resting-place;
My own dark thoughts I cannot shun,
But ever love, and love but one.

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 knocked on the head for his labours.
To do good to Mankind is the chivalrous plan,
And is always as nobly requited;
Then battle fro Freedom wherever you can,
And, if not shot or hanged, you'll get knighted.

The power of thought is the magic of the mind.

Woman! experience might have told me,
That all must love thee who behold thee:
Surely experience might have taught
Thy firmest promises are nought:
But, placed in all thy charms before me,
All I forget, but to adore thee.

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.

I am ashes where once I was fire...

And yet, my girl, we weep in vain,
In vain our fate in sighs deplore;
Remembrance only can remain,
But that, will make us weep the more.

Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven!
If in your bright leaves we would read the fate
Of men and empires,-'tis to be forgiven,
That in our aspirations to be great,
Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state,
And claim a kindred with you; for ye are
A beauty and a mystery, and create
In us such love and reverence from afar,
That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star.

They never fail who die in a great cause.

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.

In this way Byron's take on the human condition becomes closer to the fractured collage of 20th century existentialists: a conflicted human nature posited within a harsh and painful environment where self-less compassion is essential to human progress, but is rewarded with torture and suffering.

And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on.

...methinks the older that one grows,
Inclines us more to laugh the scold, though laughter
Leaves us so doubly serious shortly after.

Can tyrants but by tyrants conquered be

Oh pleasure, you're indeed a pleasant thing, / Although one must be damned for you no doubt. / I make a resolution every spring / Of reformation, ere the year run out.

I am at length joined to Bologna, where I am settled like a sausage.

They grieved for those who perished with the cutter, and also for the biscuit casks and butter.

There' s not a joy the world can give like that it takes away,
When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay.

All human history attests
That happiness for man, - the hungry sinner! -
Since Eve ate apples, much depends on dinner.
~Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto XIII, stanza 99

Despair and Genius are too oft connected

Many are poets, but without the name;
For what is Poesy but to create
From overfeeling Good or Ill; and aim
At an external life beyond our fate,
And be the new Prometheus of new men,
Bestowing fire from Heaven, and then, too late,
Finding the pleasure given repaid with pain

Oh, there is sweetness in the mountain air And life, that bloated Ease can never hope to share.

As if her veins ran lightning

Where there is mystery, it is generally supposed there must be evil.

There is something pagan in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything.

Shadow! or Spirit!
Whatever thou art,
Which still doth inherit
The whole or a part
Of the form of thy birth,
Of the mould of thy clay,
Which returned to the earth,
Re-appear to the day!

The humblest individual under heaven, Than might suffice a moderate century through. I knew that nought was lasting, but now even Change grows too changeable without being new.

Love in full life and length, not love ideal,
No, nor ideal beauty, that fine name,
But something better still, so very real ...

A woman who gives any advantage to a man may expect a lover
but will sooner or later find a tyrant.

A woman should never be seen eating or drinking, unless it be lobster salad and Champagne, the only true feminine and becoming viands.

This is the age of oddities let loose.

And mine's a bubble not blown up for praise, But just to play with, as an infant plays.

There is no instinct like that of the heart.

I have not written for their pleasure ... I have never flattered their opinions, nor their pride; nor will I. Neither will I make "Ladies' books" al dilettar le femine e la plebe. I have written from the fulness of my mind, from passion, from impulse, from many sweet motives, but not for their "sweet voices."
I know the precise worth of popular applause, for few scribblers have had more of it; and if I chose to swerve into their paths, I could retain it, or resume it. But I neither love ye, nor fear ye; and though I buy with ye and sell with ye, I will neither eat with ye, drink with ye, nor pray with ye.

More brave than firm,
and more disposed to dare
And die at once
than wrestle with despair ...

Thou shalt believe in Milton, Dryden, Pope;
Thou shalt not set up Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey;
Because the first is crazed beyond all hope,
The second drunk, the third so quaint and mouthy.

Absence - that common cure of love.

Come, lay thy head upon my breast and I'll kiss thee unto rest.

Death, so called, is a thing which makes men weep, And yet a third of life is passed in sleep.

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.

But suppose it past, - suppose one of these men, as I have seen them meagre with famine, sullen with despair, careless of a life which your lordships are perhaps about to value at something less than the price of a stocking-frame ; suppose this man surrounded by those children for whom he is unable to procure bread at the hazard of his existence, about to be torn for ever from a family which he lately supported in peaceful industry, and which it is not his fault than he can no longer so support; suppose this man - and there are ten thousand such from whom you may select your victims, - dragged into court to be tried for this new offence, by this new law, - still there are two things wanting to convict and condemn him, and these are, in my opinion, twelve butchers for a jury, and a Jefferies for a judge!

A drop of ink may make a million think.

Then away with all such from the head that is hoary!
What care I for the wreaths that can only give glory?

Let him! He is great but in his greatness he is no happier than we in our conflict! Goodness would not make evil; and what else hath he made? but let him sit on his vast solitary throne, creating worlds to make eternity less burthensome to his immense existence.

Just as I had formed a tolerable establishment my travels commenced, and on my return I find all to do over again; my former flock were all scattered; some married, not before it was needful.

You gave me the key to your heart, my love, then why did you make me knock?

Prometheus-like from heaven she stole The fire that through those silken lashes In darkest glances seems to roll, From eyes that cannot hide their flashes: And as along her bosom steal In lengthened flow her raven tresses, You'd swear each clustering lock could feel, And curled to give her neck caresses.

Being of no party,
I shall offend all parties

Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.

Though sages may pour out their wisdom's treasure, there is no sterner moralist then Pleasure.

Tis to create, and in creating live
A being more intense, that we endow
With form our fancy, gaining as we give
The life we image, even as I do now.
What am I? Nothing: but not so art thou,
Soul of my thought! with whom I traverse earth,
Invisible but gazing, as I glow
Mix'd with thy spirit, blended with thy birth,
And feeling still with thee in my crush'd feelings' dearth.

Yet he was jealous, though he did not show it, For jealousy dislikes the world to know it.

Life's enchanted cup sparkles near the brim

Sleep hath its own world, A boundary between the things misnamed Death and existence: Sleep hath its 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.

I do not believe in any religion, I will have nothing to do with immortality. We are miserable enough in this life without speculating upon another.

Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes sin's a pleasure.