George Gordon Byron
George Gordon Byron (invariably known as Lord Byron), later Noel, 6th Baron Byron of Rochdale FRS was a British poet and a leading figure in Romanticism. Amongst Byron's best-known works are the brief poems She Walks in Beauty, When We Two Parted, and So, we'll go no more a roving, in addition to the narrative poems Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Don Juan. He is regarded as one of the greatest British poets and remains widely read and influential, both in the English-speaking world and beyond.
Byron's notabilty rests not only on his writings but also on his life, which featured upper-class living, numerous love affairs, debts, and separation. He was notably described by Lady Caroline Lamb as "mad, bad, and dangerous to know". Byron served as a regional leader of Italy's revolutionary organization, the Carbonari, in its struggle against Austria. He later travelled to fight against the Ottoman Empire in the Greek War of Independence, for which Greeks revere him as a national hero. He died from a fever contracted while in Messolonghi in Greece.
“Man, being reasonable, must get drunk; the best of life is but intoxication.”
“T is sweet to win, no matter how, one's laurels,By blood or ink; 't is sweet to put an endTo strife; 't is sometimes sweet to have our quarrels,Particularly with a tiresome friend:Sweet is old wine in bottles, ale in barrels;Dear is the helpless creature we defendAgainst the world; and dear the schoolboy spotWe ne'er forget, though there we are forgot.But sweeter still than this, than these, than all,Is first and passionate Love—it stands alone,Like Adam's recollection of his fall;The Tree of Knowledge has been plucked—all 's known—And Life yields nothing further to recallWorthy of this ambrosial sin, so shown,No doubt in fable, as the unforgivenFire which Prometheus filched for us from Heaven.”
“I only go out to get me a fresh appetite for being alone.”
“She was like me in lineaments-- her eyesHer hair, her features, all, to the very toneEven 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 mindTo comprehend the universe: nor theseAlone, 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!”
“Why do they call me misanthrope? Because They hate me, not I them.”
“What deep wounds ever closed without a scar?”
“Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure; Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure.”
“Though sages may pour out their wisdom's treasure, there is no sterner moralist then Pleasure.”
“On with the dance! let joy be unconfin'd”
“I have great hopes that we shall love each other all our lives as much as if we had never married at all. ”
“Hate is by far the greatest pleasure; men love in haste, but detest in leisure. ”
“Then stirs the feeling infinite, so feltIn solitude, where we are least alone.”
“If I should meet theeAfter long yearsHow should I greet thee?With silence and tears.”
“the poor dog, in life the firmest friend, the first to welcome, the foremost to defend.”
“You gave me the key to your heart, my love, then why did you make me knock?”
“In her first passion, a woman loves her lover, in all the others all she loves is love.”
“Oh who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried.”
“Are not the mountains, waves, and skies as much a part of me, as I of them?”
“I have not loved the world, nor the world me, but let us part fair foes; I do believe, though I have found them not, that there may be words which are things, hopes which will not deceive, and virtues which are merciful, or weave snares for the failing: I would also deem o'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve; that two, or one, are almost what they seem, that goodness is no name, and happiness no dream.”
“If I do not write to empty my mind, I go mad.”
“I live not in myself, but I becomePortion of that around me: and to meHigh mountains are a feeling, but the humof human cities torture.”
“They never fail who die in a great cause.”
“This is the age of oddities let loose.”
“Tis strange,-but true; for truth is always strange;Stranger than fiction: if it could be told,How much would novels gain by the exchange!How differently the world would men behold!”