Lord Byron

“That which would not yield, nor could forget,Which, when it least appear'd to melt,Intensely thought, intensely felt:The deepest ice which ever frozeCan only o'er the surface close;The living stream lies quick below,And flows--and cannot cease to flow.”

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

“I am ashes where once I was fire...”

“In solitude, where we are least alone.”

“To be perfectly original one should think much and read little, and this is impossible, for one must have read before one has learnt to think.”

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

“The kiss, dear maid ! thy lip has leftShall never part from mine,Till happier hours restore the giftUntainted back to thine. Thy parting glance, which fondly beams,An equal love may see:The tear that from thine eyelid streamsCan weep no change in me. I ask no pledge to make me blestIn gazing when alone;Nor one memorial for a breast,Whose thoughts are all thine own. Nor need I write --- to tell the taleMy pen were doubly weak:Oh ! what can idle words avail,Unless the heart could speak ? By day or night, in weal or woe,That heart, no longer free,Must bear the love it cannot show,And silent ache for thee.”

“He was a man of his times. with one virtue and a thousand crimes. (The Corsair)”

“For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!”

“Even innocence itself has many a wile,And will not dare to trust itself with truth,And love is taught hypocrisy from youth.”

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

“But 'why then publish?' There are no rewardsOf fame or profit when the world grows weary.I ask in turn why do you play at cards?Why drink? Why read? To make some hour less dreary.It occupies me to turn back regardsOn what I've seen or pondered, sad or cheery,And what I write I cast upon the streamTo swim or sink. I have had at least my dream.”

“I awoke one morning to find myself famous.”

“My Dearest Theresa,I have read this book in your garden, my love, you were absent, or else I could not have read it. It is a favourite book of mine. You will not understand these English words, and others will not understand them, which is the reason I have not scrawled them in Italian. But you will recognize the handwriting of him who passionately loved you, and you will divine that, over a book that was yours, he could only think of love.In that word, beautiful in all languages, but most so in yours, Amor mio, is comprised my existence here and thereafter. I feel I exist here, and I feel that I shall exist hereafter – to what purpose you will decide; my destiny rests with you, and you are a woman, eighteen years of age, and two out of a convent, I wish you had stayed there, with all my heart, or at least, that I had never met you in your married state.But all this is too late. I love you, and you love me, at least, you say so, and act as if you did so, which last is a great consolation in all events. But I more than love you, and cannot cease to love you. Think of me, sometimes, when the Alps and ocean divide us, but they never will, unless you wish it.”

“I will keep no further journal of that same hesternal torch‐light ; and, to prevent me from returning, like a dog, to the vomit of memory, I tear out the remaining leaves of this volume...”

“Happiness was born a twin.”

“The English winter - ending in July to recommence in August”

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

“My heart in passion, and my head on rhymes.”

“Wedded she some years, and to a manOf fifty, and such husbands are in plenty;And yet, I think, instead of such a ONE'Twere better to have TWO of five and twenty...”

“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!How oft would vice and virtue places change!The new world would be nothing to the old,If some Columbus of the moral seasWould show mankind their souls' antipodes.”

“Dull is the eye that will not weep to see- Thy walls defaced thy mouldering shines removed- by british hands, which it had best behoved- to guard those relics ne'er to be restored. Curst be the hour when from their isle they roved,- And once again thy hapless bossom gored- and snatch'd shrinking gods to northern climes abhorred.”

“Between two worlds life hovers like a star,'Twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's vergeHow little we know that which we are!How less we may be!”

“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.”

“When people say, "I've told you fifty times," / They mean to scold, and very often do; / When poets say, "I've written fifty rhymes," / They make you dread that they 'II recite them too;In gangs of fifty, thieves commit their crimes; / At fifty love for love is rare, 't is true, / But then, no doubt, it equally as true is, / A good deal may be bought for fifty Louis.”

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

“That prose is a verse, and verse is a prose; convincing all, by demonstrating plain – poetic souls delight in prose insane”

“I came to realize clearly that the mind is no other than the Mountain and the Rivers and the great wide Earth, the Sun and the Moon and the Sky”.”

“Society is now one polish'd horde, Form'd of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored.”

“The poor dog, in life the firmest friend, The first to welcome, foremost to defend, Whose honest heart is still the master's own, Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone, Unhonour'd falls, unnoticed all his worth, Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth, While man, vain insect hopes to be forgiven, And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven.”

“Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.”

“So much alarmed that she is quite alarming”

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

“As soon seek roses in December, ice in June,Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaffBelieve a woman or an epitaphOr any other thing that’s falseBefore you trust in critics.”

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

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

“Be thou the rainbow in the storms of life. The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, and tints tomorrow with prophetic ray.”

“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.”

“Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter,Sermons and soda-water the day after.”

“Years steal fire from the mind as vigor from the limb; and life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.”

“I love not man the less, but nature more”

“Letter writing is the only device combining solitude with good company.”

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

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

“Absence - that common cure of love.”

“To have joy, one must share it.”

“We'll Go No More A-rovingSo, we'll go no more a-rovingSo late into the night,Though the heart still be as loving,And the moon still be as bright.For the sword outwears its sheath,And the soul wears out the breast,And the heart must pause to breathe,And love itself have rest.Though the night was made for loving,And the day returns too soon,Yet we'll go no more a-rovingBy the light of the moon.”

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

“Old man! 'Tis not difficult to die.”

“On with the dance! let joy be unconfin'd;No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meetTo chase the Glowing Hours with Flying feet.”