Letitia Elizabeth Landon Quotes

732 Sourced Quotes

My tears are buried in my heart,
Like cave-locked fountains sleeping.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Of all false assertions that ever went into the world under the banner of a great name and the mail armor of a well-turned phrase, Locke's comparison of the mind to a blank sheet of paper appears to me among the most untrue.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Ah! there are memories that will not vanish;
Thoughts of the past we have no power to banish.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
When will my soul forget the look
With which one single stem she took
From out the wreath ?—a tulip flower;
But, touch'd as by some withering power,
The painted leaves were drooping round
The rich but burning heart they bound.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Now, bitter, but useful, mortification is the steppingstone to knowledge, even in a child.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Ah! love and song are but a dream,
A flower's faint shade on life's dark stream.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
I'm weary, I'm weary. Oh! pleasure is pain
When its spell has been broken again and again.
I am weary of smiles that are bought and are sold,
I am weary of beauty whose fetters are gold,
I am weary of wealth—what makes it of me
But that which the basest and lowest might be?

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
And all was silence. — save when the wild bees.
Intoxicate with their noon revelries,
Murmuring, kiss'd the blossoms where they lay ;
Or when the breeze bore a green leaf away;
Or when the flutter of the cusha's wing
Echoed its song of plaintive languishing —

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
The loorie brought to his cinnamon nest.
The bee from the midst of its honey quest,
And open the leaves of the lotus lay
To welcome the noon of the summer day.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
My bark is on the ocean riding,
Like a spirit o'er it gliding;
Maiden, wilt thou come—and be
Queen of my fair ship and me?

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Where on earth is the truth that may vie
With woman's lone and long constancy?

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
In childhood, the impetus of conversation is curiosity. The child talks to ask questions. But one of its first lessons, as it advances, is that a question is an intrusion, and an answer a deceit.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
I have a respect for family pride. If it be a prejudice, it is a prejudice in its most picturesque shape. But I hold it is connected with some of the noblest feelings in our nature.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
—I never saw more perfect loveliness.
It ask'd, it had no aid from dress: her robe
Was white, and simply gather'd in such folds
As suit a statue: neck and arms were bare;
The black hair was unbound, and like a veil
Hung even to her feet; she held a lute,
And, as she paced the ancient gallery, waked
A few wild chords, and murmur'd low sweet words,
But scarcely audible, as if she thought
Rather than spoke:—the night, the solitude,
Fill'd the young Pythoness with poetry.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
He leapt upon his steed, and like the wind
They speed them on ; at first his giddy brain
Swam like a chaos— mystery of the mind
Which would guide its own workings, but in vain :

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
To this hour, the great science and duty of politics is lowered by the petty leaven of small and personal advantage.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Look upon that hour-marked round,
Listen to that fateful sound ;
There my silent hand is stealing.
My more silent course revealing ;
Wild, devoted Pleasure, hear, —
Stay thee on thy mad career !

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
I do love violets:
They tell the history of woman's love;
They open with the earliest breath of spring;
Lead a sweet life of perfume, dew, and light;
And, if they perish, perish with a sigh
Delicious as that life.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
I will not seek the battle-field —
The men I there should meet,
What have they done to me to make
Shedding their life-blood sweet ?
It is the veriest madness man
In maddest mood can frame,
To feed the earth with human gore,
And then to call it fame.
I have been wrong'd ; but were my wrong
The deadliest wrong ere done,
I would not slay my enemy,
But bid him still live on :—
And I should deem my vengeance more
Than the death-wound in strife—
What ills can death inflict like those
Heap'd on each hour of life ?

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
That which is always within our reach, is always the last thing we take; and the chances are, that what we can do every day, we never do at all.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
A summer isle, one over which the wind
Hath ever pass'd in melody,— such airs
As are born in the rose's breast, and die
Like singing on the waters.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
True love is timid, as it knew its worth,
And that such happiness is scarce for earth.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Up climb'd the sweet pea,
The butterfly of flowers:—I love it not,
Though every hue—and it has many tints—
Are dyed as if the sunset evening clouds
Had fallen to the earth in sudden rain,
And left their colours : purple, delicate pink,
And snowy white, are on thy wing-like leaves;
But thou art all too forward in thy bloom ;
Thy blossoms are the sun's, and cling to all
That can support them into open day:
And then they die, leaving no root behind,
The hope and promise of another spring;
And no perfume, whose lingering gratitude
Remains round what upheld its summer's life.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
I own it gave my picturesque fancies at first a shock, to hear of a steam-boat on Loch Katrine ; but I was wrong. Nothing could be a more decisive proof of the increased communication between England and Scotland — and communication is the regal road to improvement of every kind.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
… Oh! burning are the drops
That wounded love will shed—like to the dew
Falling from off the poison tree, the blight
Still following the touch ;—ah ! other tears
Soften and bless—but these destroy the heart.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon