George Gordon Byron

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

“Fare thee well, and if for everStill for ever fare thee well.”

“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.”

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

“You are 'the best of cut-throats:'--do not start;The phrase is Shakespeare's, and not misapplied:--War's a brain-spattering, windpipe-slitting art,Unless her cause by Right be sanctified.If you have acted once a generous part,The World, not the World's masters, will decide,And I shall be delighted to learn who,Save you and yours, have gained by Waterloo?I am no flatterer--you've supped full of flattery:They say you like it too--'tis no great wonder:He whose whole life has been assault and battery,At last may get a little tired of thunder;And swallowing eulogy much more than satire, heMay like being praised for every lucky blunder;Called 'Saviour of the Nations'--not yet saved,And Europe's Liberator--still enslaved.I've done. Now go and dine from off the platePresented by the Prince of the Brazils,And send the sentinel before your gateA slice or two from your luxurious meals:He fought, but has not fed so well of late...”

“They accuse me--Me--the present writer ofThe present poem--of--I know not what,--A tendency to under-rate and scoffAt human power and virtue, and all that;And this they say in language rather rough.Good God! I wonder what they would be at!I say no more than has been said in Dante'sVerse, and by Solomon and by Cervantes;By Swift, by Machiavel, by Rochefoucault;By Fenelon, by Luther and by Plato;By Tillotson, and Wesley, and Rousseau,Who knew this life was not worth a potato.'Tis not their fault, nor mine, if this be so--For my part, I pretend not to be Cato,Nor even Diogenes.--We live and die, But which is best, you know no more than I.”

“Some have accused me of a strange designAgainst the creed and morals of this land,And trace it in this poem every line:I don't pretend that I quite understandMy meaning when I would be very fine;But the fact is that I have nothing planned...”

“He thought about himself, and the whole Earth,Of Man the wonderful, and of the Stars,And how the deuce they ever could have birth;And then he thought of Earthquakes, and of Wars,How many miles the Moon might have in girth,Of Air-balloons, and of the many barsTo perfect Knowledge of the boundless Skies;And then he thought of Donna Julia's eyes.”

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

“‎Our life is twofold; 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. They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts, they take a weight off our waking toils. They do divide our being; they become a portion of ourselves as of our time, and look like heralds of eternity. They pass like spirits of the past—they speak like sibyls of the future; they have power— the tyranny of pleasure and of pain. They make us what we were not—what they will, and shake us with the vision that’s gone by, the dread of vanished shadows—Are they so? Is not the past all shadow?—What are they? Creations of the mind?—The mind can make substances, and people planets of their own, with beings brighter than have been, and give a breath to forms which can outlive all flesh. I would recall a vision which I dreamed, perchance in sleep—for in itself a thought, a slumbering thought, is capable of years, and curdles a long life into one hour.”

“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.”

“She walks in beauty, like the nightOf cloudless climes and starry skies;And all that’s best of dark and brightMeet in her aspect and her eyes:Thus mellow’d to that tender lightWhich heaven to gaudy day denies.One shade the more, one ray the less,Had half impaired the nameless graceWhich waves in every raven tress,Or softly lightens o’er her face;Where thoughts serenely sweet expressHow pure, how dear their dwelling-place.And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,The smiles that win, the tints that glow,But tell of days in goodness spent,A mind at peace with allA heart whose love is innocent!”

“but quiet to quick bosoms is a hell.”

“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.”

“In quiet we had learn'd to dwell-Myvery chains and I grew friends,So much a long communion tends-To make us what we are:-even IRegain'd my freedom with a sigh.”

“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.”

“If I could always read I should never feel the want of company.”

“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!”

“Тот, кто не любит свою страну, ничего любить не может.”

“Despair and Genius are too oft connected”

“Many are poets, but without the name;For what is Poesy but to createFrom overfeeling Good or Ill; and aimAt 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”

“A timid mind is apt to mistake every scratch for a mortal wound.”

“Alas! They were so young, so beautiful, so lonely, loving, helpless, and the hour was that in which the heart is always full, annd, having o'er itself no further power, prompts deeds eternity can not annul.”

“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!”

“Can tyrants but by tyrants conquered be”

“But pomp and power alone are woman's care,And where these are light Eros finds a feere;Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare,And Mammon wins his way where Seraphs might despair.”

“Let us have wine and woman, mirth and laughter,Sermons and soda water the day after.Man, being reasonable, must get drunk;The best of life is but intoxication:Glory, the grape, love, gold, in these are sunkThe hopes of all men, and of every nation;Without their sap, how branchless were the trunkOf life's strange tree, so fruitful on occasion:But to return--Get very drunk; and whenYou wake with head-ache, you shall see what then.”

“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.”

“But words are things, and a small drop of ink,      Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think;      ’T is strange, the shortest letter which man uses Instead of speech, may form a lasting link      Of ages; to what straits old Time reduces Frail man, when paper — even a rag like this, Survives himself, his tomb, and all that’s his.”

“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.”

“Nothing so difficult as a beginning In poesy, unless perhaps the end; For oftentimes when Pegasus seems winning The race, he sprains a wing, and down we tend, Like Lucifer when hurled from Heaven for sinning; Our sin the same, and hard as his to mend, Being Pride, which leads the mind to soar too far, Till our own weakness shows us what we are. But Time, which brings all beings to their level, And sharp Adversity, will teach at last Man,—and, as we would hope,—perhaps the Devil, That neither of their intellects are vast: While Youth's hot wishes in our red veins revel, We know not this—the blood flows on too fast; But as the torrent widens towards the Ocean, We ponder deeply on each past emotion.”

“Now Juan could not understand a word, Being no Grecian; but he had an ear, And her voice was the warble of a bird, ... So soft, so sweet, so delicately clear, That finer, simpler music ne'er was heard; The sort of sound we echo with a tear, Without knowing why - an overpowering tone, Whence Melody descends as from a throne.”

“More brave than firm,and more disposed to dareAnd die at oncethan wrestle with despair...”

“All who joy would winMust share it -- Happiness was born a twin.”

“For truth is always strange; stranger than fiction.”

“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.”

“I doubt sometimes whether a quiet and unagitated life would have suited me - yet I sometimes long for it.”

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

“The stars are forth, the moon above the topsOf the snow-shining mountains.—Beautiful!I linger yet with Nature, for the nightHath been to me a more familiar faceThan that of man; and in her starry shadeOf dim and solitary loveliness,I learn'd the language of another world.”

“But what is Hope? Nothing but the paint on the face of Existence; the least touch of truth rubs it off, and then we see what a hollow-cheeked harlot we have got hold of.”

“When We Two PartedWhen we two partedIn silence and tears,Half broken-heartedTo sever for years,Pale grew thy cheek and cold,Colder thy kiss;Truly that hour foretoldSorrow to this.The dew of the morningSunk chill on my brow—It felt like the warningOf what I feel now.Thy vows are all broken,And light is thy fame:I hear thy name spoken,And share in its shame.They name thee before me,A knell to mine ear;A shudder comes o'er me—Why wert thou so dear?They know not I knew thee,Who knew thee too well:Long, long shall I rue thee,Too deeply to tell.In secret we met—In silence I grieve,That thy heart could forget,Thy spirit deceive.If I should meet theeAfter long years,How should I greet thee?With silence and tears.”

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

“Friendship is love without wings.”

“and what is writ, is writ,Would it were worthier! but I am not nowThat which I have been”

“Yet I did love thee to the last,As ferverently as thou,Who didst not change through all the past,And canst not alter now.”

“A woman being never at a loss... the devil always sticks by them.”

“I see before me the Gladiator lie: / He leans upon his hand - his manly brow / Consents to death, but conquers agony.”

“There is no instinct like that of the heart.”

“My slumbers--if I slumber--are not sleep,But a continuance of enduring thought,Which then I can resist not: in my heartThere is a vigil, and these eyes but closeTo look within; and yet I live, and bearThe aspect and the form of breathing men.”

“A drop of ink may make a million think.”