Walter Savage Landor Quotes

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. ~ Walter Savage Landor

God scatters beauty as he scatters flowers O'er the wide earth, and tells us all are ours. A hundred lights in every temple burn, And at each shrine I bend my knee in turn. ~ Walter Savage Landor

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. ~ Walter Savage Landor

Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art. ~ Walter Savage Landor

The sweetest souls, like the sweetest flowers, soon canker in cities, and no purity is rarer there than the purity of delight. ~ Walter Savage Landor

To my ninth decade I have totter'd on, And no soft arm bends now my steps to steady; She, who once led me where she would, is gone, So when he calls me, Death shall find me ready. ~ Walter Savage Landor

We must distinguish between felicity and prosperity; for prosperity leads often to ambition, and ambition to disappointment; the course is then over, the wheel turns round but once, while the reaction of goodness and happiness is perpetual. ~ Walter Savage Landor

Modesty and diffidence make a man unfit for public affairs; they also make him unfit for brothels. ~ Walter Savage Landor

There is a desire of property in the sanest and best men, which Nature seems to have implanted as conservative of her works, and which is necessary to encourage and keep alive the arts. ~ Walter Savage Landor

I loved him not; and yet, now he is gone,
I feel I am alone.
I check'd him while he spoke; yet, could he speak,
Alas! I would not check.
For reasons not to love him once I sought,
And wearied all my thought
To vex myself and him: I now would give
My love could he but live
Who lately lived for me, and, when he found
'Twas vain, in holy ground
He hid his face amid the shades of death.
I waste for him my breath
Who wasted his for me! but mine returns,
And this lorn bosom burns
With stifling heat, heaving it up in sleep,
And waking me to weep
Tears that had melted his soft heart: for years
Wept he as bitter tears.
Merciful God! such was his latest prayer,
These may she never share.
Quieter is his breath, his breast more cold,
Than daisies in the mould,
Where children spell, athwart the churchyard gate,
His name and life's brief date.
Pray for him, gentle souls, whoe'er you be,
And oh! pray too for me! ~ Walter Savage Landor

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

Let a gentleman be known to have been cheated of twenty pounds, and it costs him forty a-year for the remainder of his life. ~ Walter Savage Landor

Two evils, of almost equal weight, may befall the man of erudition; never to be listened to, and to be listened to always. ~ Walter Savage Landor

He who first praises a book becomingly is next in merit to the author. ~ Walter Savage Landor

No thoroughly occupied person was ever found really miserable. ~ Walter Savage Landor

Falsehood is for a season. ~ Walter Savage Landor

I sometimes think that the most plaintive ditty has brought a fuller joy and of longer duration to its composer that the conquest of Persia to the Macedonian. ~ Walter Savage Landor

Kindness in ourselves is the honey that blunts the sting of unkindness in another. ~ Walter Savage Landor

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. ~ Walter Savage Landor

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. ~ Walter Savage Landor

The wise become as the unwise in the enchanted chambers of Power, whose lamps make every face the same colour. ~ Walter Savage Landor

Happiness, like air and water, the other two great requisites of life, is composite. One kind of it suits one man, another kind another. The elevated mind takes in and breathes out again that which would be uncongenial to the baser; and the baser draws life and enjoyment from that which would be putridity to the loftier. ~ Walter Savage Landor

We may receive so much light as not to see, and so much philosophy as to be worse than foolish. ~ Walter Savage Landor

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. ~ Walter Savage Landor

Do not expect to be acknowledged for what you are, much less for what you would be; since no one can well measure a great man but upon the bier. ~ Walter Savage Landor

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. ~ Walter Savage Landor

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. ~ Walter Savage Landor

We care not how many see us in choler, when we rave and bluster, and make as much noise and bustle as we can; but if the kindest and most generous affection comes across us, we suppress every sign of it, and hide ourselves in nooks and covert. ~ Walter Savage Landor

Authors are like cattle going to a fair: those of the same field can never move on without butting one another. ~ Walter Savage Landor

The worse of ingratitude lies not in the ossified heart of him who commits it, but we find it in the effect it produces on him against whom it was committed. ~ Walter Savage Landor

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. ~ Walter Savage Landor

Cats, like men, are flatterers. ~ Walter Savage Landor

Fleas know not whether they are upon the body of a giant or upon one of ordinary size. ~ Walter Savage Landor

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. ~ Walter Savage Landor

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. ~ Walter Savage Landor

You should indeed have longer tarried By the roadside before you married. ~ Walter Savage Landor

Every sect is a moral check on its neighbour. Competition is as wholesome in religion as in commerce. ~ Walter Savage Landor

The highest price we can pay for anything; is to ask it. ~ Walter Savage Landor

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. ~ Walter Savage Landor

Many love music but for music's sake, Many because her touches can awake Thoughts that repose within the breast half-dead, And rise to follow where she loves to lead. What various feelings come from days gone by! What tears from far-off sources dim the eye! Few, when light fingers with sweet voices play, And melodies swell, pause, and melt away, Mind how at every touch, at every tone, A spark of life hath glistened and hath gone. ~ Walter Savage Landor

In argument, truth always prevails finally; in politics, falsehood always. ~ Walter Savage Landor

Consult duty not events. ~ Walter Savage Landor

Other offences, even the greatest, are the violation of one law: despotism is the violation of all. ~ Walter Savage Landor

There is nothing on earth divine except humanity. ~ Walter Savage Landor

Experience is our only teacher both in war and peace. ~ Walter Savage Landor

No ashes are lighter than those of incense, and few things burn out sooner. ~ Walter Savage Landor

It has been my fortune to love in general those men most who have thought most differently from me, on subjects wherein others pardon no discordance. I think I have no more right to be angry with a man, whose reason has followed up a process different from what mine has, and is satisfied with the result, than with one who has gone to Venice while I am at Siena, and who writes to me that he likes the place. ~ Walter Savage Landor

Principles do not mainly influence even the principled; we talk on principle, but we act on interest. ~ Walter Savage Landor

No truer word, save God's, was ever spoken,
Than that the largest heart is soonest broken. ~ Walter Savage Landor

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

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. ~ Walter Savage Landor

True wit, to every man, is that which falls on another. ~ Walter Savage Landor

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. ~ Walter Savage Landor

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. ~ Walter Savage Landor

When we play the fool, how wideThe theatre expands! beside,How long the audience sits before us!How many prompters! what a chorus! ~ Walter Savage Landor

If in argument we can make a man angry with us, we have drawn him from his vantage ground and overcome him. ~ Walter Savage Landor

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

As there are some flowers which you should smell but slightly to extract all that is pleasant in them ... so there are some men with whom a slight acquaintance is quite sufficient to draw out all that is agreeable; a more intimate one would be unsafe and unsatisfactory. ~ Walter Savage Landor

The very beautiful rarely love at all; those precious images are placed above the reach of the passions: Time alone is permitted to efface them. ~ Walter Savage Landor

The spirit of Greece, passing through and ascending above the world, hath so animated universal nature, that the very rocks and woods, the very torrents and wilds burst forth with it. ~ Walter Savage Landor

O Music! how it grieves me that imprudence, intemperance, gluttony, should open their channels into thy sacred stream. ~ Walter Savage Landor

What is reading but silent conversation. ~ Walter Savage Landor

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

When a cat flatters ... he is not insincere: you may safely take it for real kindness. ~ Walter Savage Landor

It is easy to look down on others; to look down on ourselves is the difficulty. ~ Walter Savage Landor

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

The assailant is often in the right; the assailed is always. ~ Walter Savage Landor

We must not indulge in unfavorable views of mankind, since by doing it we make bad men believe they are no worse than others, and we teach the good that they are good in vain. ~ Walter Savage Landor

Next in criminality to him who violates the laws of his country, is he who violates the language. ~ Walter Savage Landor

A mercantile democracy may govern long and widely; a mercantile aristocracy cannot stand. ~ Walter Savage Landor

My thoughts are my company; I can bring them together, select them, detain them, dismiss them. ~ Walter Savage Landor

Great men lose somewhat of their greatness by being near us; ordinary men gain much. ~ Walter Savage Landor

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

A true philosopher is beyond the reach of fortune. ~ Walter Savage Landor

Study is the bane of childhood, the oil of youth, the indulgence of adulthood, and a restorative in old age. ~ Walter Savage Landor

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

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. ~ Walter Savage Landor

Many laws as certainly make bad men, as bad men make many laws. ~ Walter Savage Landor

Absurdities are great or small in proportion to custom or insuetude. ~ Walter Savage Landor

The most pernicious of absurdities is that weak, blind, stupid faith is better than the constant practice of every human virtue. ~ Walter Savage Landor

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

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. ~ Walter Savage Landor

Children are what the mothers are. ~ Walter Savage Landor

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. ~ Walter Savage Landor

Cruelty is the highest pleasure to the cruel man; it is his love. ~ Walter Savage Landor

The happy never say, and never hear said, farewell. ~ Walter Savage Landor

Delay in justice is injustice. ~ Walter Savage Landor

Patience, piety, and salutary knowledge spring up and ripen under the harrow of affliction; before there is wine or oil, the grape must be trodden and the oil pressed. ~ Walter Savage Landor

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. ~ Walter Savage Landor

Petulance is not wit, although a few grains of wit may be found in petulance; quartz is not gold, although a few grains of gold may be found in quartz. ~ Walter Savage Landor

The habit of pleasing by flattery makes a language soft; the fear of offending by truth makes it circuitous and conventional. ~ Walter Savage Landor

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

Death stands above me,
Whispering low I know not what into my ear. ~ Walter Savage Landor

Life and death appear more certainly ours than whatsoever else; and yet hardly can that be called ours, which comes without our knowledge, and goes without it. ~ Walter Savage Landor

I strove with none; for none was worth my strife. ~ Walter Savage Landor

We listen to those whom we know to be of the same opinion as ourselves, and we call them wise for being of it; but we avoid such as differ from us. ~ Walter Savage Landor

The vain poet is of the opinion that nothing of his can be too much: he sends to you basketful after basketful of juiceless fruit, covered with scentless flowers. ~ Walter Savage Landor

States, like men, have their growth, their manhood, their decrepitude, their decay. ~ Walter Savage Landor

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. ~ Walter Savage Landor

We cannot at once catch the applauses of the vulgar and expect the approbation of the wise. ~ Walter Savage Landor