George Gordon Byron Quotes & Sayings

I am at length joined to Bologna, where I am settled like a sausage. — George Gordon Byron

When We Two Parted

When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning
Sunk chill on my brow -
It felt like the warning
Of 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 thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears. — George Gordon Byron

Always laugh when you can, it is cheap medicine. — George Gordon Byron

Yet he was jealous, though he did not show it, For jealousy dislikes the world to know it. — George Gordon Byron

If I have any fault, it is digression — George Gordon Byron

The power of thought is the magic of the mind. — George Gordon Byron

I should, many a good day, have blown my brains out, but for the recollection that it would have given pleasure to my mother-in-law. — George Gordon Byron

Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter, sermons and soda water the day after. — George Gordon Byron

And he who lieth there was childless. I have dried the fountain of gentle race..
-Cain — George Gordon Byron

There is no instinct like that of the heart. — George Gordon Byron

He was a man of his times. with one virtue and a thousand crimes. (The Corsair) — George Gordon Byron

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. — George Gordon Byron

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! — George Gordon Byron

I doubt sometimes whether a quiet and unagitated life would have suited me - yet I sometimes long for it. — George Gordon Byron

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. — George Gordon 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 froze
Can only o'er the surface close;
The living stream lies quick below,
And flows
and cannot cease to flow. — George Gordon Byron

It is not with earth, though I must till it, I feel at war..but I may not profit of what it bears of beauty,untoiling, Nor gratify my thousands swelling thoughts with knowledge, Nor allay my thousand fears of death and life. — George Gordon Byron

We of the craft (poets) are all crazy. — George Gordon Byron

As if her veins ran lightning — George Gordon Byron

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. — George Gordon Byron

Tis strange - but true; for Truth is always strange,
Stranger than Fiction — George Gordon Byron

The moon is up, and yet it is not night,
The sun as yet divides the day with her. — George Gordon Byron

Remember thee! remember thee!
Till Lethe quench life's burning stream
Remorse and shame shall cling to thee,
And haunt thee like a feverish dream!
Remember thee! Aye, doubt it not.
Thy husband too shall think of thee:
By neither shalt thou be forgot,
Thou false to him, thou fiend to me! — George Gordon Byron

There' s not a joy the world can give like that it takes away,
When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay. — George Gordon Byron

And those who saw, it did surprise,
Such drops could fall from human eyes. — George Gordon Byron

A drop of ink may make a million think. — George Gordon Byron

Even innocence itself has many a wile,
And will not dare to trust itself with truth,
And love is taught hypocrisy from youth. — George Gordon Byron

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. — George Gordon Byron

Woman! experience might have told me,
That all must love thee who behold thee:
Surely experience might have taught
Thy firmest promises are nought:
But, placed in all thy charms before me,
All I forget, but to adore thee. — George Gordon Byron

Many are poets, but without the name;
For what is Poesy but to create
From overfeeling Good or Ill; and aim
At 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 — George Gordon Byron

Can tyrants but by tyrants conquered be — George Gordon Byron

My great comfort is, that the temporary celebrity I have wrung from the world has been in the very teeth of all opinions and prejudices. I have flattered no ruling powers; I have never concealed a single thought that tempted me. — George Gordon Byron

Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life. — George Gordon Byron

All human history attests
That happiness for man, - the hungry sinner! -
Since Eve ate apples, much depends on dinner.
~Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto XIII, stanza 99 — George Gordon Byron

The mellow autumn came, and with it came
The promised party, to enjoy its sweets.
The corn is cut, the manor full of game;
The pointer ranges, and the sportsman beats
In russet jacket; - lynx-like is his aim;
Full grows his bag, and wonderful his feats.
Ah, nutbrown partridges! Ah, brilliant pheasants!
And ah, ye poachers! - 'Tis no sport for peasants. — George Gordon Byron

He learned the arts of riding, fencing, gunnery,
And how to scale a fortress - or a nunnery. — George Gordon Byron

In this way Byron's take on the human condition becomes closer to the fractured collage of 20th century existentialists: a conflicted human nature posited within a harsh and painful environment where self-less compassion is essential to human progress, but is rewarded with torture and suffering. — George Gordon Byron

And from his native land resolved to go, And visit scorching climes beyond the sea; With pleasure drugged, he almost longed for woe, And e'en for change of scene would seek the shades below. — George Gordon Byron

I have great hopes that we shall love each other all our lives as much as if we had never married at all. — George Gordon Byron

They never fail who die in a great cause. — George Gordon Byron

Are not the mountains, waves, and skies as much a part of me, as I of them? — George Gordon Byron

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. — George Gordon Byron

This is to be mortal, And seek the things beyond mortality. — George Gordon Byron

On with the dance! let joy be unconfin'd — George Gordon Byron

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. — George Gordon Byron

There 's music in all things, if men had ears: — George Gordon Byron

Hate is by far the greatest pleasure; men love in haste, but detest in leisure. — George Gordon Byron

If I could always read I should never feel the want of company. — George Gordon Byron

The thorns which I have reap'd are of the tree
I planted; they have torn me, and I bleed.
I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed. — George Gordon Byron

...methinks the older that one grows,
Inclines us more to laugh the scold, though laughter
Leaves us so doubly serious shortly after. — George Gordon Byron

They grieved for those who perished with the cutter, and also for the biscuit casks and butter. — George Gordon Byron

A little still she strove, and much repented,
And whispering "I will ne'er consent" - consented. — George Gordon Byron

Ah, monarchs! could ye taste the mirth ye mar, Not in the toils of Glory would ye fret; The hoarse dull drum would sleep, and Man be happy yet. — George Gordon Byron

What deep wounds ever closed without a scar? — George Gordon Byron

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. — George Gordon Byron

But 'tis done - all words are idle
Words from me are vainer still;
But the thoughts we cannot bridle 55
Force their way without the will.
Fare thee well! thus disunited,
Torn from every nearer tie,
Sear'd in heart, and lone, and blighted,
More than this I scarce can die. — George Gordon Byron

T is sweet to win, no matter how, one's laurels,
By blood or ink; 't is sweet to put an end
To 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 defend
Against the world; and dear the schoolboy spot
We 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 recall
Worthy of this ambrosial sin, so shown,
No doubt in fable, as the unforgiven
Fire which Prometheus filched for us from Heaven. — George Gordon Byron

If I do not write to empty my mind, I go mad. — George Gordon Byron

In her first passion, a woman loves her lover, in all the others all she loves is love. — George Gordon Byron

He knew himself a villain - but he deem'd
The rest no better than the thing he seem'd;
And scorn'd the best as hypocrites who hid
Those deeds the bolder spirit plainly did.
He knew himself detested, but he knew
The hearts that loath'd him, crouch'd and dreaded too.
Lone, wild, and strange, he stood alike exempt
From all affection and from all contempt — George Gordon Byron

I suppose I had some meaning when I wrote it; I believe I understood it then. — George Gordon Byron

Adversity is the first path to truth. — George Gordon Byron

Revenge is as the tigers spring,
Deadly, and quick, and crushing; yet, as real
Torture is theirs, what they inflict they feel. — George Gordon Byron

The English winter - ending in July to recommence in August — George Gordon Byron

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 sunk
The hopes of all men, and of every nation;
Without their sap, how branchless were the trunk
Of life's strange tree, so fruitful on occasion:
But to return
Get very drunk; and when
You wake with head-ache, you shall see what then. — George Gordon Byron

Just as I had formed a tolerable establishment my travels commenced, and on my return I find all to do over again; my former flock were all scattered; some married, not before it was needful. — George Gordon Byron

There's naught, no doubt, so much the spirit calms as rum and true religion. — George Gordon Byron

Some have accused me of a strange design
Against the creed and morals of this land,
And trace it in this poem every line:
I don't pretend that I quite understand
My meaning when I would be very fine;
But the fact is that I have nothing planned ... — George Gordon Byron

My slumbers
if I slumber
are not sleep,
But a continuance of enduring thought,
Which then I can resist not: in my heart
There is a vigil, and these eyes but close
To look within; and yet I live, and bear
The aspect and the form of breathing men. — George Gordon Byron

You gave me the key to your heart, my love, then why did you make me knock? — George Gordon Byron

Absence - that common cure of love. — George Gordon Byron

This is the age of oddities let loose. — George Gordon Byron

Man's love is of man's life a thing apart,
'Tis woman's whole existence. — George Gordon Byron

So much alarmed that she is quite alarming — George Gordon Byron

For pleasures past I do not grieve, Nor perils gathering near; My greatest grief is that I leave No thing that claims a tear. — George Gordon Byron

Above or Love, Hope, Hate or Fear,
It lives all passionless and pure:
An age shall fleet like earthly year;
Its years in moments shall endure.
Away, away, without a wing,
O'er all, through all, its thought shall fly;
A nameless and eternal thing,
Forgetting what it was to die. — George Gordon Byron

The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space. — George Gordon Byron

Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt
In solitude, where we are least alone. — George Gordon Byron

Loathed he in his native land to dwell, Which seemed to him more lone than eremite's sad cell. — George Gordon Byron

Evil and Good are things in their own essebce and not made good or evil by the giver. but if he gives you good so cal him; if evil springs from him, do not name it mine till ye know better its true fount
-Lucifer — George Gordon Byron

I am so changeable, being everything by turns and nothing long - such a strange melange of good and evil. — George Gordon Byron

Where there is mystery, it is generally supposed there must be evil. — George Gordon Byron

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. — George Gordon Byron

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. — George Gordon Byron

Here's a sigh to those who love me, And a smile to those who hate; And whatever sky's above me, Here's a heart for every fate. — George Gordon Byron

Love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey. — George Gordon Byron

The heart will break, but broken live on. — George Gordon Byron

Time and Nemesis will do that which I would not, were it in my power remote or immediate. You will smile at this piece of prophecy - do so, but recollect it: it is justified by all human experience. No one was ever even the involuntary cause of great evils to others, without a requital: I have paid and am paying for mine - so will you. — George Gordon Byron

But first, on earth as vampire sent,
Thy corse shall from its tomb be rent,
Then ghastly haunt thy native place,
And suck the blood of all thy race.
There from thy daughter, sister, wife,
At midnight drain the stream of life,
Yet loathe the banquet which perforce
Must feed thy livid living corse.
Thy victims ere they yet expire
Shall know the demon for their sire,
As cursing thee, thou cursing them,
Thy flowers are withered on the stem. — George Gordon Byron

She was like me in lineaments
her eyes
Her hair, her features, all, to the very tone
Even 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 mind
To comprehend the universe: nor these
Alone, 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! — George Gordon Byron

My heart in passion, and my head on rhymes. — George Gordon Byron

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. — George Gordon Byron

I only go out to get me a fresh appetite for being alone. — 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 ... — George Gordon Byron

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! — George Gordon Byron

if i dont write to empty my mind, i go mad — George Gordon Byron

I have stood upon Achilles' tomb
and heard Troy doubted,
Time will doubt of Rome — George Gordon Byron

Byron's Prometheus becomes symbolic of the human condition in both his mixed divinity and his drive to suffer through the toils of life in a grand effort towards a progressive evolution, whereby the cruel fate of humanity might someday be overcome. — George Gordon Byron

It is not in the storm or in the strife
We feel benumbed and wish to be nor more,
But in the after-silence on the shore
When all is lost except a little life. — George Gordon Byron

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more — George Gordon Byron