Tennyson Quotes

Shall love be blamed for want of faith? ~ Alfred Tennyson

Forgive my grief for one removed Thy creature whom I found so fair I trust he lives in Thee and there I find him worthier to be loved. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Sooner or later I too may passively take the print
Of the golden age--why not? I have neither hope nor trust;
May make my heart as a millstone, set my face as a flint,
Cheat and be cheated, and die: who knows? we are ashes and dust. ~ Alfred Tennyson

When you meet triumph or disaster, treat these imposters alike. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

That a lie which is all a lie may be met and fought with outright, But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to fight. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

It was easier to deal with Tennyson when he was fighting me; but having him on my side was frightening, because now I didn't know who the enemy was. ~ Neal Shusterman

What the sunshine is to the flower, the Lord Jesus Christ is to my soul. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

The wind sounds like a silver wire, And from beyond the noon a fire Is pour'd upon the hills, and nigher The skies stoop down in their desire; And, isled in sudden seas of light, My heart, pierced thro' with fierce delight, Bursts into blossom in his sight. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Do you know, a horrible thing has happened to me. I have begun to doubt Tennyson. ~ Gerard Manley Hopkins

One so small Who knowing nothing knows but to obey. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Tis not for golden eloquence I pray,
A godlike tongue to move a stony heart
Methinks it were full well to be apart
In solitary uplands far away,
Betwixt the blossoms of a rosy spray,
Dreaming upon the wonderful sweet face
Of Nature, in a wild and pathless place. ~ Frederick Tennyson

I had liefer twenty years/Skip to the broken music of my brains/Than any broken music thou canst make. ~ Alfred Tennyson

He that wrongs his friend, wrongs himself more. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

I found Him in the shining of the stars,
I marked Him in the flowering of His fields,
But in His ways with men I find Him not.
I waged His wars, and now I pass and die.
O me! for why is all around us here
As if some lesser god had made the world,
But had not force to shape it as he would,
Till the High God behold it from beyond,
And enter it, and make it beautiful? ~ Alfred Tennyson

Current among men, Like coin, the tinsel clink of compliment. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Those who depend on the merits of their ancestors may be said to search in the roots of the tree for those fruits which the branches ought to produce. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

More than once when I
Sat all alone, revolving in myself
The word that is the symbol of myself,
The mortal limit of the Self was loosed,
And passed into the nameless, as a cloud
Melts into heaven. I touch'd my limbs, the limbs
Were strange, not mine - and yet no shade of doubt,
But utter clearness, and thro' loss of Self
The gain of such large life as matched with ours
Were sun to spark - unshadowable in words,
Themselves but shadows of a shadow-world ~ Alfred Tennyson

I grow in worth, and wit, and sense, Unboding critic-pen, Or that eternal want of pence, Which vexes public men. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

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. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

The time draws near the birth of Christ;
The moon is hid; the night is still;
The Christmas bells from hill to hill
Answer each other in the mist. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

When the whistle blew and the call stretched thin across the night, one had to believe that any journey could be sweet to the soul. ~ Charles Tennyson Turner

I myself beheld the King
Charge at the head of all his Table Round,
And all his legions crying Christ and him,
And break them; and I saw him, after, stand
High on a heap of slain, from spur to plume
Red as the rising sun with heathen blood,
And seeing me, with a great voice he cried,
"They are broken, they are broken!" for the King,
However mild he seems at home, nor cares
For triumph in our mimic wars, the jousts -
For if his own knight cast him down, he laughs
Saying, his knights are better men than he -
Yet in this heathen war the fire of God
Fills him: I never saw his like: there lives
No greater leader. ~ Alfred Tennyson

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. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Come, Time, and teach me many years,
I do not suffer in dream;
For now so strange do these things seem,
Mine eyes have leisure for their tears. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Again! It was like the question asked by Tennyson about the flower in the crannied wall. That is, to answer it might involve the history of the universe. ~ Saul Bellow

Forerun thy peers, thy time, and let
Thy feet, millenniums hence, be set
In midst of knowledge, dream'd not yet. ~ Alfred Tennyson

Be near me when my light is low ... And all the wheels of being slow. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

The world which credits what is done is cold to all that might have been. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

While he gazed
The beauty of her flesh abashed the boy,
As though it were the beauty of her soul:
For as the base man, judging of the good,
Puts his own baseness in him by default
Of will and nature, so did Pelleas lend
All the young beauty of his own soul to hers ~ Alfred Tennyson

Her court was pure, her life serene; God gave her peace; her land reposed; A thousand claims to reverence closed ... ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Sweet is true love, though given in vain. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

And statesmen at her council met Who knew the seasons, when to take Occasion by the hand, and make The bounds of freedom wider yet. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

For every worm beneath the moon Draws different threads, and late and soon Spins, toiling out his own cocoon. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

France had shown a light to all men, preached a Gospel, all men's good; Celtic Demos rose a Demon, shriek'd and slaked the light with blood. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Hateful is the dark-blue sky,
Vaulted o'er the dark-blue sea.
Death is the end of life; ah, why
Should life all labour be? ~ Alfred Tennyson

So many worlds, so much to do, so little done, such things to be. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Live and lie reclined On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind. For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurled Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curled Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

=The Burial of Love= His eyes in eclipse, Pale cold his lips, The light of his hopes unfed, Mute his tongue, His bow unstrung With the tears he hath shed, Backward drooping his graceful head. Love is dead; His last arrow sped; He hath not another dart; Go--carry him to his dark deathbed; Bury him in the cold, cold heart-- Love is dead. ~ Alfred Tennyson

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. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new, That which they have done but earnest of the things which they shall do. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Of happy men that have the power to die, And grassy barrows of the happier dead. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

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

We needs must love the highest when we see it. ~ Alfred Tennyson

The folly of all follies is to be love sick for a shadow. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Nature is one with rapine, a harm no preacher can heal; The Mayfly is torn by the swallow, the sparrow speared by the shrike, And the whole little wood where I sit is a world of plunder and prey. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Blow trumpet, for the world is white with May. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

The vow that binds too strictly snaps itself. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

The kind of poetry to avoid in the pretty-pretty kind that pleased our grandmothers, the kind that Longfellow and Tennyson, good poets at their best, wrote at their worst. ~ Clifton Fadiman

But there was heard among the holy hymns A voice as of the waters, for she dwells Down in a deep‐ calm, whatsoever storms may shake the world ~ Alfred Tennyson

Miltons were, on the whole, the most enthusiastic poet followers. A flick through the London telephone directory would yield about four thousand John Miltons, two thousand William Blakes, a thousand or so Samuel Colleridges, five hundred Percy Shelleys, the same of Wordsworth and Keats, and a handful of Drydens. Such mass name-changing could have problems in law enforcement. Following an incident in a pub where the assailant, victim, witness, landlord, arresting officer and judge had all been called Alfred Tennyson, a law had been passed compelling each namesake to carry a registration number tattooed behind the ear. It hadn't been well received
few really practical law-enforcement measures ever are. ~ Jasper Fforde

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

The rainbow bursts like magic on mine eyes! In hues of ancient promise there imprest ... ~ Charles Tennyson Turner

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. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Contemporary fantasists all bow politely to Lord Tennyson and Papa Tolkien, then step around them to go back to the original texts for inspiration
and there are a lot of those texts. We have King Arthur and his gang in English; we've got Siegfried and Brunhild in German; Charlemagne and Roland in French; El Cid in Spanish; Sigurd the Volsung in Icelandic; and assorted 'myghtiest Knights on lyfe' in a half-dozen other cultures. Without shame, we pillage medieval romance for all we're worth. ~ David Eddings

When luck hits you hard with Failure; hit it back softly with your Success! ~ Naila Tennyson

And while he waited in the castle court,
The voice of Enid, Yniol's daughter, rang
Clear through the open casement of the hall,
Singing; and as the sweet voice of a bird,
Heard by the lander in a lonely isle,
Moves him to think what kind of bird it is
That sings so delicately clear, and make
Conjecture of the plumage and the form;
So the sweet voice of Enid moved Geraint;
And made him like a man abroad at morn
When first the liquid note beloved of men
Comes flying over many a windy wave
To Britain, and in April suddenly
Breaks from a coppice gemmed with green and red,
And he suspends his converse with a friend,
Or it may be the labour of his hands,
To think or say, 'There is the nightingale;'
So fared it with Geraint, who thought and said,
'Here, by God's grace, is the one voice for me. ~ Alfred Tennyson

We are self-uncertain creatures, and we may Yea, even when we know not, mix our spites And private hates with our defence of Heaven. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

How many a father have I seen, A sober man, among his boys, Whose youth was full of foolish noise. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

What rights are those that dare not resist for them? ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Let knowledge grow from more to more, But more of reverence in us dwell; That mind and soul, according well, May make one music as before, But vaster. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force, Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell. ~ Alfred Tennyson

He learns that the form, in its current form, was originally called a formulary, and was invented by an Englishman named Charles Babbage, the same man who invented both an early kind of computer and the cow catcher, a device attached to the front of locomotives to clear debris from train tracks. He learns that Babbage once wrote to Alfred Tennyson to correct two lines from one of Tennyson's poems, which Babbage felt lacked scientific accuracy. This, thinks Jonas, tells you everything you need to know about both the man and the invention of forms. ~ Stephen Dau

Tennyson seems to be the patron saint of the wishy washies, which is perhaps why I admire him so much, not only as a poet, but as a man. ~ A. N. Wilson

Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, The love of love. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

What would it profit thee to be the first Of echoes, tho thy tongue should live forever, A thing that answers, but hath not a thought As lasting but as senseless as a stone. ~ Frederick Tennyson

God gives us Love, something to love, God lends us. ~ Alfred Tennyson

There is sweet music here that softer falls Than petals from blown roses on the grass, ... ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Ah, when shall all men's good
Be each man's rule, and universal peace
Lie like a shaft of light across the land,
And like a lane of beams athwart the sea,
Thro' all the circle of the golden year? ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Love's too precious to be lost,
A little grain shall not be spilt. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

My office walls are covered with autographs of famous writers - it's what my children call my 'dead author wall.' I have signatures from Mark Twain, Earnest Hemingway, Jack London, Harriett Beecher Stowe, Pearl Buck, Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, to name a few. ~ Debbie Macomber

Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers;
Unfaith is aught is want of faith in all. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Long sleeps the summer in the seed.

Verse CIV ~ Alfred Tennyson

Do you remember the Lady of Shalott? The mirror crack'd from side to side: 'The doom has come upon me,' cried the Lady of Shalott. Well, that's what she looked like. People laugh at Tennyson nowadays, but the Lady of Shalott always thrilled me when I was young and it still does. ~ Agatha Christie

Thou madest man, he knows not why, he thinks he was not made to die. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

There is no land like England,
Where'er the light of day be;
There are no hearts like English hearts,
Such hearts of oak as they be;
There is no land like England,
Where'er the light of day be:
There are no men like Englishmen,
So tall and bold as they be!
And these will strike for England,
And man and maid be free
To foil and spoil the tyrant
Beneath the greenwood tree. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Call me Mac," he said.
Mackadocious is more like it.
"For the next month, I will be your writing instructor..."
Lip Macking Good.
"It was Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who said, 'Words, like Nature, half reveal and half conceal the Soul within...'"
Big Mac Attack.
"Here, in the next five weeks, I hope you do more revealing than concealing..."
Oh, I'll reveal more than that if you want me to, Mac Daddy. ~ Megan McCafferty

I am half-sick of shadows,' said The Lady of Shalott. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

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

Time...a maniac scattering dust. ~ Alfred Tennyson

Let me go: take back thy gift:
Why should a man desire in any way
To vary from the kindly race of men,
Or pass beyond the goal of ordinance
Where all should pause, as is most meet for all?
...Why wilt thou ever scare me with thy tears,
And make me tremble lest a saying learnt,
In days far-off, on that dark earth, be true?
'The Gods themselves cannot recall their gifts.'
- Tithonus ~ Alfred Tennyson

A simple maiden in her flower, Is worth a hundred coats of arms. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

For why is all around us here As if some lesser god had made the world, But had not force to shape it as he would? Alfred Lord Tennyson: Idylls of the King ~ K.H. Rennie

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. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Rich in saving common-sense, And, as the greatest only are, In his simplicity sublime. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Through the ages one increasing purpose runs. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Know ye not then the Riddling of the Bards?
Confusion, and illusion, and relation,
Elusion, and occasion, and evasion? ~ Alfred Tennyson

The dirty nurse, Experience, in her kind Hath fouled me. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles whom we knew. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Rain, rain, and sun! A rainbow in the sky! ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Who loves not Knowledge? Who shall rail
Against her beauty? May she mix
With men and prosper! Who shall fix
Her pillars? Let her work prevail. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

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

The stream will cease to flow;
The wind will cease to blow;
The clouds will cease to fleet;
The heart will cease to beat;
For all things must die. ~ Alfred Tennyson

There she weaves by night and day, A magic web with colors gay. She has heard a whisper say, A curse is on her if she stay, To look down to Camelot. She knows not what the curse may be, And so she weaveth steadily, And little other care hath she, The Lady of Shalott. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

I do but sing because I must; and pipe but as the linnets sing. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

If you don't concentrate on what you are doing then the thing that you are doing is not what you are thinking. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

But the churchmen fain would kill their church, As the churches have kill'd their Christ. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Flower

Once in a golden hour
I cast to earth a seed.
Up there came a flower,
The people said, a weed.

To and fro they went
Thro' my garden-bower,
And muttering discontent
Cur'd me and my flower.

Then it grew so tall
It wore a crown of light,
But thieves from o'er the wall
Stole the seed by night.

Sow'd it far and wide
By every town and tower,
Till all the people cried,
"Splendid is the flower."

Read my little fable:
He that runs may read.
Most can raise the flowers now,
For all have got the seed.

And some are pretty enough,
And some are poor indeed;
And now again the people
Call it but a weed. ~ Alfred Tennyson

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