Byron's Quotes & Sayings

Well, if it's an order," she said on a gentle tease, warmed by his words in spite of herself. "You know, for such a cerebral man, you certainly have powerful physical appetites."
His lips curved in a seductive smile. "Of course, I do. I'm a Byron, after all. It's in my blood. — Tracy Anne Warren

Without an uninvestigated story, there's only the perfection of life appearing as itself. You can always go inside and find the beauty that's revealed after the pain and fear are understood. — Byron Katie

Oh, nature's noblest gift, my grey goose quill, Slave of my thoughts, obedient to my will, Torn from the parent bird to form a pen, That mighty instrument of little men. — Lord Byron

Can it be, thought I, that my sole mission on earth is to destroy the hopes of others? Ever since I began to live and act, fate has somehow associated me with the last act of other people's tragedies, as if without me no one could either die or give way to despair! I have been the inevitable character who comes in at the final act, involuntarily playing the detestable role of the hangman or the traitor. What has been fate's object in all this? Has it destined me to be the author of middle-class tragedies and family romances
or a purveyor of tales for, say, the Reader's Library? Who knows? Are there not many who begin life by aspiring to end it like Alexander the Great, or Lord Byron, and yet remain petty civil servants all their lives? — Mikhail Lermontov

Life's too short for chess. — Henry James Byron

When Newton saw an apple fall, he found In that slight startle from his contemplation- 'Tis said (for I'll not answer above ground For any sage's creed or calculation)- A mode of proving that the earth turn'd round In a most natural whirl, called 'gravitation'; And this is the sole mortal who could grapple, Since Adam, with a fall, or with an apple. — Lord Byron

Inviting people to inquiry is much more powerful to me than describing my experience. When people hear me tell the story, they often say, "Oh my goodness, I get it. I get it!" But it's not enough. — Byron Katie

A schoolboy's tale, the wonder of an hour! — Lord Byron

Until you look forward to all criticism, your Work's not done. — Byron Katie

And mine's a bubble not blown up for praise, But just to play with, as an infant plays. — George Gordon Byron

And these vicissitudes come best in youth;
For when they happen at a riper age,
People are apt to blame the Fates, forsooth,
And wonder Providence is not more sage.
Adversity is the first path to truth:
He who hath proved war, storm, or woman's rage,
Whether his winters be eighteen or eighty,
Has won experience which is deem'd so weighty. — Lord Byron

It's been such a deep and amazing journey for me, getting close to John Keats, and also I love Shelley and Byron. I mean, the thing about the Romantic poets is that they've got the epitaph of romantic posthumously. They all died really young, and Keats, the youngest of them all. — Jane Campion

Ah me! what hand can pencil guide, or pen, To follow half on which the eye dilates Through views more dazzling unto mortal ken Than those whereof such things the bard relates, Who to the awe-struck world unlocked Elysium's gates? — George Gordon Byron

Do you want to be right more than you want to know the truth? It's the truth that set me free. Acceptance, peace, and less attachment to a world of suffering are all effects of doing The Work. They're not the goals. Do The Work for the love of freedom, for the love of truth. — Byron Katie

It's not what happens in life that bothers us. It's what we're believing about it that bothers us. — Byron Katie

I can't but say it is an awkward sight To see one's native land receding through The growing waters; it unmans one quite, Especially when life is rather new. — Lord Byron

She read absorbedly books found in boarding-house parlours, in hotels, in such public libraries as the times afforded. She was alone for hours a day, daily. Frequently her father, fearful of loneliness for her, brought her an armful of books and she had an orgy, dipping and swooping about among them in a sort of gourmand's ecstasy of indecision. In this way, at fifteen, she knew the writings of Byron, Jane Austen, Dickens, Charlotte Bronte, Felicia Hemans. Not to speak of Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth, Bertha M. Clay, and that good fairy of the scullery, the Fireside Companion, in whose pages factory girls and dukes were brought together as inevitably as steak and onions. These last were, of course, the result of Selina's mode of living, and were loaned to her by kind-hearted landladies, chambermaids, and waitresses all the way from California to New York. — Edna Ferber

Well done, Darren!" Master Byron was full of praise for the prince. "What did you use to cast it?"
Darren's eyes found mine. "Something I don't regret. — Rachel E. Carter

Life's to short for chess. — Henry James Byron

I speak not of men's creeds - they rest between Man and his Maker. — Lord Byron

Romances paint at full length people's wooing. But only give a bust of marriages. — Lord Byron

But 'midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men, To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess, And roam along, the world's tired denizen, With none who bless us, none whom we can bless. — Lord Byron

What opposite discoveries we have seen!
(Signs of true genius, and of empty pockets.)
One makes new noses, one a guillotine,
One breaks your bones, one sets them in their sockets;
But vaccination certainly has been
A kind antithesis to Congreve's rockets, ... — Lord Byron

The basis of your religion is injustice. The Son of God the pure, the immaculate, the innocent, is sacrificed for the guilty. This proves his heroism, but no more does away with man's sin than a school boy's volunteering to be flogged for another would exculpate a dunce from negligence. — Lord Byron

Hurt feelings or discomfort of any kind cannot be caused by another person. No one outside me can hurt me. That's not a possibility. It's only when I believe a stressful thought that I get hurt. And I'm the one who's hurting me by believing what I think. This is very good news, because it means that I don't have to get someone else to stop hurting me. I'm the one who can stop hurting me. It's within my power.
What we are doing with inquiry is meeting our thoughts with some simple understanding, finally. Pain, anger, and frustration will let us know when it's time to inquire. We either believe what we think or we question it: there's no other choice. Questioning our thoughts is the kinder way. Inquiry always leaves us as more loving human beings. — Byron Katie

When we believe in our thoughts, when we tell ourselves a story, we suffer. 'My husband doesn't respect me.' 'I should be thinner.' Those are stories. When there's no story, there's no suffering. — Byron Katie

The Cardinal is at his wit's end - it is true that he had not far to go. — Lord Byron

There's never a mistake in the universe. So if your partner is angry, good. If there are things about him that you consider flaws, good, because these flaws are your own, you're projecting them, and you can write them down, inquire, and set yourself free. People go to India to find a guru, but you don't have to: you're living with one. Your partner will give you everything you need for your own freedom. — Byron Katie

Tis pleasing to be school'd in a strange tongue By female lips and eyes
that is, I mean, When both the teacher and the taught are young, As was the case, at least, where I have been; They smile so when one's right; and when one's wrong They smile still more. — Lord Byron

He was your usual man when it came to romance, which is to say he couldn't recite Baa Baa Black Sheep when sober, whereas when drunk, sixteen cantos of Byron's Don Juan was par for the course. — Tyne O'Connell

there is no shortage of reading material in this house. Charlotte is an excellent writer, but Mr. Shakespeare is better, and if it's Branwell's wickedness you like, Papa says we may read Lord Byron in moderation." Emily — Lena Coakley

It's not easy to find your own way when you believe that you need love, approval, appreciation, or anything from your family. It's particularly hard when you want them to see things your way. — Byron Katie

I've heard people say that they cling to their painful thoughts
because they're afraid that without them they wouldn't be activists for peace.
"If I feel peaceful," they say, "why would I bother taking action at all?"
My answer is "Because that's what love does."
To think that we need sadness or outrage
to motivate us to do what's right is insane.
As if the clearer and happier you get, the less kind you become.
As if when someone finds freedom, she just sits around all day
with drool running down her chin.
My experience is the opposite.
Love is action. — Byron Katie

Time may restore us in his course Goethe's sage mind and Byron's force: But where will Europe's latter hour Again find Wordsworth's healing power? — Matthew Arnold

It's good that it hurts. Pain is the signal that you're confused, that you're in a lie. — Byron Katie

Better to keep it in the old heads, where no one can see it or suspect it. We are all bits and pieces of history and literature and international law. Byron, Tom Paine, Machiavelli, or Christ, it's here. And the hour's late. And the war's begun. And we are out here, and the city is there, all wrapped up in its own coat of a thousand colors ... All we want to do is keep the knowledge we think we will need intact and safe. We're not out to incite or anger anyone yet. For if we are destroyed, the knowledge is dead, perhaps for good ... Right now we have a horrible job; we're waiting for the war to begin and, as quickly, end. It's not pleasant, but then we're not in control, we're the odd minority crying in the wilderness. When the war's over, perhaps we can be of some use in the world. — Ray Bradbury

Thy decay's still impregnate with divinity. — Lord Byron

Champagne with its foaming whirls/As white as Cleopatra's pearls. — Lord 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

Mrs. Sussex said Byron's loss would grow more bearable. But here was the nub: he didn't want to lose his loss. Loss was all he had left of his mother. If time healed the gap, it would be as if she'd never been there. — Rachel Joyce

No, I'm not Byron, it's my role
To be an undiscovered wonder,
Like him, a persecuted wand'rer,
But furnished with a Russian soul.
I started sooner, sooner ending,
My mind will never reach so high;
Within my soul, beyond the mending,
My shattered aspirations lie:
Dark ocean answer me, can any
Plumb all your depth with skillful trawl?
Who will explain me to the many?
I ... perhaps God? No one at all? — Mikhail Lermontov

While much recent historicist criticism has assumed early nineteenth-century readers attuned to subtle ideological nuances in poetry, actual responses from readers often come closer to clulessness ... It is no surprise that no one understood Blake, but other poets fared not much better ... Coleridge's 'Christabel' was 'the standing enigma which puzzles the curiosity of literary circles. What is it all about?', while another reviewer asked about Shelley, 'What, in the name of wonder on one side, and of common sense on the other, is the meaning of this metaphysical rhapsody about the unbinding of Prometheus?'. Even Keats was condemned for 'his frequent obscurity and confusion of language' and his 'unintelligible quaintness'. Byron, never to be outdone, boasted in 'Don Juan' that not only did he not understand many of his fellow poets, he did not understand himself either: 'I don't pretend that I quite understand / My own meaning when I would be very fine.' ... — Andrew Elfenbein

Go let thy less than woman's hand Assume the distaff not the brand. — Lord Byron

It's a wonderful world when you have what you want at all times. — Byron Katie

When we work with our thinking, then to have great wealth is the same as to have nothing. That's the only freedom. — Byron Katie

Byron listened quietly, thinking to himself how people everywhere are about the same, but that it did seem that in a small town, where evil is harder to accomplish, where opportunities for privacy are scarcer, that people can invent more of it in other people's names. Because that was all it required: that idea, that single idle word blown from mind to mind. — William Faulkner

Byron; and, realistically, quite a number of those infants will die without my care, and Josephine is hardly a creature with potential, hardly anybody's idea of a tabula rasa, a blank slate - hell, she's a slate that's had bad math scrawled on it and then been waxed so that nothing can ever be written on it again. I've treated sheep that had more of a right to live. — Tim Powers

Then he looked at my T-shirt and saw Byron's picture on it and he quoted "She Walks in Beauty," which is like my favorite poem next to the one by Baudelaire about his girlfriend being nothing but worm food, except that Lily called that one first because Baudelaire is her fave poet and so she got the shirt with him on it, even though Byron is way more scrumptious and I would do him on sharp gravel if I had the chance.
from The Chronicles of Abby Normal — Christopher Moore

When you act like a teacher, it's usually because you're afraid to be the student. — Byron Katie

Till taught by pain, men know not water's worth. — Lord Byron

Voters replaced Democratic senators with Republicans in Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, North Carolina, Montana, South Dakota, West Virginia, and likely in Alaska, and appear on track to do so in a runoff next month in Louisiana. At the same time, voters kept Republicans in GOP seats in heavily contested races in Georgia, Kansas, and Kentucky. That is at least ten, and as many as a dozen, tough races, without a single Republican seat changing hands. Tuesday's voting was a wave alright - a very anti-Democratic wave. — Byron York

The pain shows you what's left to investigate. — Byron Katie

Oh! too convincing
dangerously dear
In woman's eye the unanswerable tear! That weapon of her weakness she can wield, To save, subdue
at once her spear and shield. — Lord Byron

As falls the dew on quenchless sands, blood only serves to wash ambition's hands. — Lord Byron

In my day we simply didn't believe that it was possible to play as well as these young fellows do. We thought that strength denied touch and that you could not consistently hit the ball both long and straight. It's been proven that you can. — Byron Nelson

Too oft is a smile
But the hypocrite's wile,
To mask detestation or fear;
Give me a soft sigh,
Whilst the soultelling eye
Is dimm'd, for a time, with a Tear — George Gordon Byron

That's the purpose of stress. It's a friend. It's an alarm clock, built in to let you know that it's time to do The Work. — Byron Katie

So you find Miss Mercer beautiful?"
The buzzing in Spencer's head formed the words, "'She walks in beauty like the night/Of cloudless climes and starry skies.'"
"My God, now you're quoting poetry."
Had he said that aloud? Bloody hell. Spencer brandished his empty mug at his brother. "I always quote verse when I'm foxed."
"You must be very foxed to quote that idiot Byron. Or very impressed by Miss Mercer's looks. — Sabrina Jeffries

We are all bits and pieces of history and literature and international law, Byron, Tom Paine, Machiavelli or Christ, it's here. And the hour's late. And the war's begun. And we are out here, and the city is there, all wrapped up in its own coat of a thousand colors. — Ray Bradbury

The devil hath not, in all his quiver's choice, An arrow for the heart like a sweet voice. — Lord Byron

Sublime tobacco! which from east to west, Cheers the tar's labour or the Turkman's rest; Which on the Moslem's ottoman divides His hours, and rivals opium and his brides; Magnificent in Stamboul, but less grand, Though not less loved, in Wapping or the Strand: Divine in hookas, glorious in a pipe, When tipp'd with amber, mellow, rich, and ripe; Like other charmers wooing the caress, More dazzlingly when daring in full dress; Yet thy true lovers more admire by far Thy naked beauties Give me a cigar! — Lord Byron

If people are living their lives for security and comfort and pleasure, then mind's every waking moment will be plotting those things. That's how it stays identified - as a body, as a you. — Byron Katie

Every single human being is trying his best. We're all doing the best we can. But when we believe what we think, we have to live out those thoughts. When there's chaos in our heads, there's chaos in our lives. When there's hurt in our thinking, there's hurt in our lives. Love thy neighbor as thyself? I always have. When I hated me, I hated you. That's how it works. If I hate someone, I'm mistaking them for me, and solutions remain hidden. — Byron Katie

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

Father of Light! great God of Heaven! Hear'st thou the accents of despair? Can guilt like man's be e'er forgiven? Can vice atone for crimes by prayer. — Lord Byron

If we are in silence - in absolute silence with no thoughts - for 10 minutes, it's only a thought that tells us we were silent for 10 minutes. Our only proof is a thought. — Byron Katie

Oh! snatched away in beauty's bloom,
On thee shall press no ponderous tomb;
But on thy turf shall roses rear
Their leaves, the earliest of the year. — Lord Byron

Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes sin's a pleasure. — George Gordon Byron

From the poetry of Lord Byron they drew a system of ethics compounded of misanthropy and voluptuousness,-a system in which the two great commandments were to hate your neighbour and to love your neighbour's wife. — Thomas B. Macaulay

Byron clapped Walter on the back. 'Good work,' he said.
Walter shook his head. 'You're the one who clocked her with the Stephen King hardcover. That took some of the wind out of her.'
'Thank heavens he's a wordy man,' said Byron. — Michael Thomas Ford

Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares gray Marathon. — Lord Byron

I have never experienced a stressful feeling that wasn't caused by attaching to an untrue thought. Behind every uncomfortable feeling, there's a thought that isn't true for us. — Byron Katie

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

Here's how a child listens: you tell him something, and he puts his own interpretation on what you said. That's what he hears. No one has ever heard you. — Byron Katie

Without our stories, we are not only able to act clearly and fearlessly, we are also a friend, a listener. We are people living happy lives. We are appreciation and gratitude that have become as natural as breath itself. Happiness is the natural state for someone who knows that there's nothing to know and that we already have everything we need, right here now. — Byron Katie

Happiness is the natural state for someone who knows that there's nothing to know. — Byron Katie

Romantic poetry had its heyday when people like Lord Byron were kicking it large. But you try and make a living as a poet today, and you'll find it's very different! — Alan Moore

It's only our story that keeps us from knowing that we always have everything we need. — Byron Katie

I hate all pain, Given or received; we have enough within us The meanest vassal as the loftiest monarch, Not to add to each other's natural burden Of mortal misery. — Lord Byron

If you think he's supposed to be different from what he is, you don't love him. In that moment you love who he's going to be when you're through manipulating him. He is a throwaway until he matches your image of him. — Byron Katie

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

Why is it so important for me to forgive that son-of-a-bitch? I'm not the one at fault here. It shouldn't be about me. He's the one that did wrong. Screw his feelings. He should feel like he's hated for what he did." Lisa added another used tissue to the growing pile on the table.
Lyn warmly smiled. "Forgiving Byron isn't for his sake, it's for yours. The block in your life's road can only be removed if you forgive him for what he did. If you don't, you'll just keep bumping into that block again and again. The life you live will be miserable. You'll never be able to break the chains of the past."
Lisa listened and let the words sink into her subconscious. She realized the only way to get to the end of the road was to take the first step. There was a block preventing her from moving forward in life. She had to find a way past it. — Dane Hatchell

God, as I use the word, is another name for what is. I always know God's intention: It's exactly what is in every moment. — Byron Katie

And there it is! Bravo! I knew it was only a matter of time before Byron realized he had an audience. That man is simply incapable of keeping his shirt on when there are spectators. One Christmas Eve, he stripped his shirt off right in the middle of the choir's rendition of Oh Child of Bethlehem. Coincidentally, the next song was Come Let Us Adore Him and the imbecile actually launched into some interpretive dance. — Kirt J. Boyd

Accursed be the city where the laws would stifle nature's! — Lord Byron

Anything for Byron's least favorite apprentice. It's the least I can do since you took over my torch. — Rachel E. Carter

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

Sinjin was sitting bare-chested with Petra's blue feather boa wrapped around his neck and draped over his shoulder. His long dark curls had been teased and sprayed into a sexy mane. Heavy black eyeliner rimmed his eyes. "Am I not gorgeous? I want to snog myself. I'm like a postmodern Lord Byron." "You put the ironic in Byronic," Petra quipped. "Well said, luv. — Libba Bray

Do you know anyone who hasn't changed his mind? This door was a tree, then it will be firewood for someone, then it will return to air and earth. We're all like that, constantly changing. It's simply honest to report that you've changed your mind when you have. When you're afraid of what people will think if you speak honestly, that's where you become confused. — Byron Katie

No one embodied the spirit of the frontier more than Daniel Boone, who faced and defeated countless natural and man-made dangers to literally hand cut the trail west through the wilderness. He marched with then colonel George Washington in the French and Indian War, established one of the most important trading posts in the West, served three terms in the Virginia Assembly, and fought in the Revolution. His exploits made him world famous; he served as the model for James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales and numerous other pioneer stories. He was so well known and respected that even Lord Byron, in his epic poem Don Juan, wrote, "Of the great names which in our faces stare, The General Boon, back-woodsman of Kentucky, Was happiest amongst mortals anywhere ... " And yet he was accused of treason - betraying his country - the most foul of all crimes at the time. What really happened to bring him to that courtroom? And was the verdict reached there correct? — Bill O'Reilly

People don't need sudden revelations. They get what they need when they need it, thought by thought by thought. It's a constant thing when the mind starts to wake up to itself. — Byron Katie

Coleridge was a drug addict. Poe was an alcoholic. Marlowe was killed by a man whom he was treacherously trying to stab. Pope took money to keep a woman's name out of a satire, then wrote a piece so that she could still be recognized, anyhow. Chatterton killed himself. Byron was accused of incest. Do you still want to a writer -and if so, why? — Bennett Cerf

Mothers remember a child's first words, and quote them in tones usually reserved for Byron. — Letty Cottin Pogrebin

Farewell! if ever fondest prayer For other's weal avail'd on high, Mine will not all be lost in air, But waft thy name beyond the sky. — Lord Byron

When you run in fear, it's square into the wall. — Byron Katie

James slid into his seat and the girl next to him asked, "What's wrong with your eyes?" It wasn't until he heard the horror in the teacher's voice - "Shirley Byron!" - that he realized he was supposed to be embarrassed; the next time it happened, he had learned his lesson and turned red right away. — Celeste Ng

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

As winds come whispering lightly from the West, Kissing, not ruffling, the blue deep's serene. — Lord Byron

This was an easy matter with a man Oft in the wrong, and never on his guard; And even the wisest, do the best they can, Have moments, hours, and days, so unprepared, That you might 'brain them with their lady's fan;' And sometimes ladies hit exceeding hard, And fans turn into falchions in fair hands, And why and wherefore no one understands. — George Gordon Byron

There's music in the sighing of a reed;
There's music in the gushing of a rill;
There's music in all things, if men had ears;
The earth is but the music of the spheres. — George Gordon Byron