Lord Byron Quotes

453 Sourced Quotes

To what gulfs A single deviation from the track Of human duties leads even those who claim The homage of mankind as their born due, And find it, till they forfeit it themselves!

Lord Byron
Oh! might I kiss those eyes of fire, A million scarce would quench desire; Still would I steep my lips in bliss, And dwell an age on every kiss; Nor then my soul should sated be, Still would I kiss and cling to thee: Nought should my kiss from thine dissever, Still would we kiss and kiss for ever; E'en though the numbers did exceed The yellow harvest's countless seed; To part would be a vain endeavour: Could I desist? -ah! never-never.

Lord Byron
Tis said that persons living on annuities Are longer lived than others.

Lord Byron
A sleep without dreams, after a rough day of toil, is what we covet most; and yet
How clay shrinks back from more quiescent clay!
The very Suicide that pays his debt at once without installments
(an old way of paying debts, which creditors regret)
Lets out impatiently his rushing breath, less from disgust of life than dread of death.

Lord Byron
For through the South the custom still commands The gentleman to kiss the lady's hands.

Lord Byron
Ancient of days! august Athena! where, Where are thy men of might? thy grand in soul? Gone--glimmering through the dream of things that were; First in the race that led to glory's goal, They won, and pass'd away--Is this the whole?

Lord Byron
Venice once was dear,
The pleasant place of all festivity,
The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy.

Lord Byron
Know ye not who would be free themselves must strike the blow? by their right arms the conquest must be wrought?

Lord Byron
Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime? Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle, Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime!

Lord Byron
Tis the perception of the beautiful, A fine extension of the faculties, Platonic, universal, wonderful, Drawn from the stars, and filtered through the skies, Without which life would be extremely dull

Lord Byron
What exile from himself can flee? To zones, though more and more remote, Still, still pursues, where'er I be, The blight of life--the demon Thought.

Lord Byron
Brisk Confidence still best with woman copes: Pique her and soothe in turn-soon Passion crowns thy hopes.

Lord Byron
Not to admire, is all the art I know To make men happy, or to keep them so. Thus Horace wrote we all know long ago; And thus Pope quotes the precept to re-teach From his translation; but had none admired, Would Pope have sung, or Horace been inspired?

Lord Byron
Exhausting thought, And hiving wisdom with each studious year.

Lord Byron
Think'st thou there is no tyranny but that Of blood and chains? The despotism of vice-- The weakness and the wickedness of luxury-- The negligence--the apathy--the evils Of sensual sloth--produces ten thousand tyrants, Whose delegated cruelty surpasses The worst acts of one energetic master, However harsh and hard in his own bearing.

Lord Byron
A legal broom's a moral chimney-sweeper, And that's the reason he himself's so dirty

Lord Byron
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The moon, their mistress, had expir'd before;
The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need
Of aid from them-She was the Universe.

Lord Byron
Be hypocritical, be cautious, be not what you seem but always what you see.

Lord Byron
But mighty Nature bounds as from her birth;
The sun is in the heavens, and life on earth:
Flowers in the valley, splendor in the beam,
Health on the gale, and freshness in the stream.

Lord Byron
Egypt! from whose all dateless tombs arose Forgotten Pharaohs from their long repose, And shook within their pyramids to hear A new Cambyses thundering in their ear; While the dark shades of forty ages stood Like startled giants by Nile's famous flood.

Lord Byron
I depart, Whither I know not; but the hour's gone by When Albion's lessening shores could grieve or glad mine eye.

Lord Byron
So bright the tear in Beauty's eye, Love half regrets to kiss it dry.

Lord Byron
Where are the forms the sculptor's soul hath seized? In him alone, Can nature show as fair?

Lord Byron
Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates - but pages might be filled up, as vainly as before, with the sad usage of all sorts of sages, who in his life-time, each was deemed a bore! The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages.

Lord Byron
Above me are the Alps, The palaces of Nature, whose vast walls Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps, And throned Eternity in icy halls.

Lord Byron
Religion-freedom-vengeance-what you will, A word's enough to raise mankind to kill.

Lord Byron
What want these outlaws conquerors should have but history's purchased page to call them great?

Lord Byron
'Twas strange that one so young should thus concern His brain about the action of the sky; If you think 'twas philosophy that this did, I can't help thinking puberty assisted.

Lord Byron
O Gold! I still prefer thee unto paper, which makes bank credit like a bark of vapour.

Lord Byron
Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves, Over the unreturning brave.

Lord Byron