Tennyson's Quotes & Sayings

I look forward all day to evening, and then I put an "engaged" on the door and get into my nice red bath robe and furry slippers and pile all the cushions behind me on the couch, and light the brass student lamp at my elbow, and read and read and read. One book isn't enough. I have four going at once. Just now, they're Tennyson's poems and "Vanity Fair" and Kipling's "Plain Tales" and - don't laugh - "Little Women." I find that I am the only girl in college who wasn't brought up on "Little Women." I haven't told anybody though (that would stamp me as queer). I just quietly went and bought it with $1.12 of my last month's allowance; and the next time somebody mentions pickled limes, I'll know what she is talking about! — Jean Webster

What rights are those that dare not resist for them? — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Those who depend on the merits of their ancestors may be said to search in the roots of the tree for those fruits which the branches ought to produce. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Manners are not idle, but the fruit of loyal and of noble mind. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite
Beyond it, blooms the garden that I love.
News from the humming city comes to it
It sound of funeral or of marriage bells. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

It's better to have tried and failed than to live life wondering what would've happened if I had tried — Alfred Lord Tennyson

For this alone on Death I wreak The wrath that garners in my heart: He put our lives so far apart We cannot hear each other speak. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Tis not your work, but Love's. Love, unperceived, A more ideal Artist he than all, Came, drew your pencil from you, made those eyes Darker than the darkest pansies, and that hair More black than ashbuds in the front of March. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Like glimpses of forgotten dreams. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage, The linnet born within the cage, That never knew the summer woods. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

France had shown a light to all men, preached a Gospel, all men's good; Celtic Demos rose a Demon, shriek'd and slaked the light with blood. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

The wild swan's death-hymn took the soul Of that waste place with joy Hidden in sorrow: at first to the ear The warble was low, and full and clear. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Be thou as the immortal are, Who dwell beneath their God's own wing A spirit of light, a living star, A holy and a searchless thing: But oh! forget not those who mourn, Because thou canst no more return. — Alfred Tennyson

Every man at time of Death,
Would fain set forth some saying that may live
After his death and better humankind;
For death gives life's last word a power to live,
And, lie the stone-cut epitaph, remain
After the vanished voice, and speak to men. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Love's too precious to be lost,
A little grain shall not be spilt. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

A life of nothing's nothing worth, From that first nothing ere his birth, To that last nothing under earth. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

What are men better than sheep or goats That nourish a blind life within the brain, If knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer Both for themselves and those who call them friend? — Alfred Lord Tennyson

If Nature put not forth her power About the opening of the flower, Who is it that could live an hour? — Alfred Lord Tennyson

And while he waited in the castle court,
The voice of Enid, Yniol's daughter, rang
Clear through the open casement of the hall,
Singing; and as the sweet voice of a bird,
Heard by the lander in a lonely isle,
Moves him to think what kind of bird it is
That sings so delicately clear, and make
Conjecture of the plumage and the form;
So the sweet voice of Enid moved Geraint;
And made him like a man abroad at morn
When first the liquid note beloved of men
Comes flying over many a windy wave
To Britain, and in April suddenly
Breaks from a coppice gemmed with green and red,
And he suspends his converse with a friend,
Or it may be the labour of his hands,
To think or say, 'There is the nightingale;'
So fared it with Geraint, who thought and said,
'Here, by God's grace, is the one voice for me. — Alfred Tennyson

God's finger touched him, and he slept. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Broad based upon her people's will, And compassed by the inviolate sea. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

What hope is here for modern rhyme
To him, who turns a musing eye
On songs, and deeds, and lives, that lie
Foreshorten'd in the tract of time?


These mortal lullabies of pain
May bind a book, may line a box,
May serve to curl a maiden's locks;
Or when a thousand moons shall wane


A man upon a stall may find,
And, passing, turn the page that tells
A grief, then changed to something else,
Sung by a long-forgotten mind.


But what of that? My darken'd ways
Shall ring with music all the same;
To breathe my loss is more than fame,
To utter love more sweet than praise. — Alfred Tennyson

The song that nerves a nation's heart is in itself a deed. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

I falter where I firmly trod, And falling with my weight of cares Upon the great world's altar-stairs That slope thro' darkness up to God, I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, And gather dust and chaff, and call To what I feel is Lord of all, And faintly trust the larger hope. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Are God and Nature then at strife,
That Nature lends such evil dreams?
So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life; ...
'So careful of the type', but no.
From scarped cliff and quarried stone
She cries, 'A thousand types are gone:
I care for nothing, all shall go' ...
Man, her last work, who seemed so fair,
Such splendid purpose in his eyes,
Who rolled the psalm to wintry skies,
Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer,
Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation's final law-
Tho' Nature red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shrieked against his creed ... — Alfred Lord Tennyson

A daughter of the gods, divinely tall, And most divinely fair. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

I can't sleep without knowing there's hope. Half the night I waste in sighs. In a wakeful doze I sorrow. For the hands, for the lips ... the eyes. For the meeting of tomorrow. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove;
In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

That man's the true Conservative who lops the moldered branch away. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

When in the down I sink my head,
Sleep, Death's twin-brother, times my breath;
Sleep, Death's twin-brother, knows not Death,
Nor can I dream of thee as dead: — Alfred Tennyson

I view askance a book that remains undisturbed for a year. Oughtn't it to have a ticket of leave? I think I may safely say no bookin my library remains unopened a year at a time, except my own works and Tennyson's. — Carolyn Wells

Sometimes the heart sees what's invisible to the eye. — Alfred Tennyson

He learns that the form, in its current form, was originally called a formulary, and was invented by an Englishman named Charles Babbage, the same man who invented both an early kind of computer and the cow catcher, a device attached to the front of locomotives to clear debris from train tracks. He learns that Babbage once wrote to Alfred Tennyson to correct two lines from one of Tennyson's poems, which Babbage felt lacked scientific accuracy. This, thinks Jonas, tells you everything you need to know about both the man and the invention of forms. — Stephen Dau

There is a change coming I think in the lives of girls and women. Yes. But it is up to us to make it come. All women have had up till now has been their connection with men. All we have had. No more lives of our own, really, than domestic animals. He shall hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force, a little closer than his dog, a little dearer than his horse. Tennyson wrote that. It's true. Was true. You will want to have children, though. — Alice Munro

But speaking of Tennyson, have you read Maud?" "Once, long ago." "It's got some points about it." He quoted softly: "'Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null. — Agatha Christie

Prayer works in the mind as a healing force. It calms the patient, enlightens the physician, guides the surgeon, and it often victoriously applies the power of the spirit when all seems lost. It proves, over and over again, the truth of Tennyson's words: "More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of." Prayer puts us on God's side. It aligns us with life's higher purposes, aims, and ideals. Prayer is dedicating our thought, feeling and action to the expression of goodness. It is to become like a window through which the light of God shines. — Wilferd Peterson

We have The Idylls of the King in English class this term. I like some things in them, but I detest Tennyson's Arthur. If I had been Guinevere I'd have boxed his ears - but I wouldn't have been unfaithful to him for Lancelot, who was just as odious in a different way. As for Geraint, if I had been Enid I'd have bitten him. These 'patient Griseldas' deserve all they get. — L.M. Montgomery

Sweet and low, sweet and low, Wind of the western sea, Low, low, breathe and blow, Wind of the western sea! Over the rolling waters go, Come from the dying moon, and blow, Blow him again to me; While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps. Sleep and rest, sleep and rest, Father will come to thee soon; Rest, rest, on mother's breast, Father will come to thee soon; Father will come to his babe in the nest, Silver sails all out of the west Under the silver moon: Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

The little bee returns with evening's gloom, To join her comrades in the braided hive, Where, housed beside their might honey-comb, They dream their polity shall long survive. — Charles Tennyson Turner

It does, Tennyson, because there's a fine line between confidence and arrogance. There's a fine line between being assertive and being a bully. And you're on the wrong side of both lines. — Neal Shusterman

What's up is faith, what's down is heresy. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

She saw the snowy poles of moonless Mars, That marvellous round of milky light Below Orion, and those double stars Whereof the one more bright

Is circled by the other — Alfred Tennyson

But I remain'd, whose hopes were dim,
Whose life, whose thoughts were little worth,
To wander on a darken'd earth,
Where all things round me breathed of him. — Alfred Tennyson

That man's the best cosmopolite Who loves his native country best. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Ah, when shall all men's good
Be each man's rule, and universal peace
Lie like a shaft of light across the land,
And like a lane of beams athwart the sea,
Thro' all the circle of the golden year? — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Thoroughly to believe in one's own self, so one's self were thorough, were to do great things. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Because right is right, to follow right Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Praise to our Indian brothers, and the dark face have his due!
Thanks to the kindly dark faces who fought with us, faithful and few,
Fought with the bravest among us, and drove them, and smote them, and slew.
That ever upon the topment roof our banner in India blew. — Alfred Tennyson

A sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier times. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Come friends, it's not too late to seek a newer world. — Alfred Tennyson

(In response to Alfred Tennyson's poem Vision of Sin , which included the line Every moment dies a man, // every moment one is born. ) If this were true, the population of the world would be at a stand-still. In truth, the rate of birth is slightly in excess of death. I would suggest that the next edition of your poem should read: "Every moment dies a man, every moment 1 1 / 16 is born." Strictly speaking, the actual figure is so long I cannot get it into a line, but I believe the figure 1 1 / 16 will be sufficiently accurate for poetry. — Charles Babbage

And on her lover's arm she leant,
And round her waist she felt it fold,
And far across the hills they went
In that new world which is the old. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

It strikes me as very strange that whereas Tennyson could support most of Mr. Buckley's propositions about free trade, and the private sector, and private enterprise, Tennyson found no difficulty also in lending intellectual support to the idea of Women's Liberation. — Germaine Greer

We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
"Ulysses" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson — Alfred Tennyson

I've known her long enough to know that this was purely intentional." He peered sideways at me, judging my reaction. "I like her just fine, but you should watch yourself around her. Tennyson is given to obsession, and her obsessions tend to run toward trouble. It's kind of a Wyoming thing to push the whole 'Wild West' routine to its limits. — Laura Anderson Kurk

I sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel For words, like nature, half reveal And half conceal the soul within. But, for the unquiet heart and brain A use measured language lie's The sad mechanic exercise Like dull narcotic's, numbing pain In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er Like coarsest clothes against the cold But large grief which these enfold Is given in outline and no more. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

The bearing and the training of a child Is woman's wisdom. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Know ye not then the Riddling of the Bards?
Confusion, and illusion, and relation,
Elusion, and occasion, and evasion? — Alfred Tennyson

Either sex alone is half itself. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Arise, go forth, and conquer as of old. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

We cannot be kind to each other here for even an hour. We whisper, and hint, and chuckle and grin at our brother's shame; however you take it we men are a little breed. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles whom we knew. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

No sword
Of wrath her right arm whirl'd,
But one poor poet's scroll, and with his word
She shook the world. — Alfred Tennyson

Virtue must shape itself in deed. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Ours is not to wonder why. Ours is just to do or die. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Later these tales would be retold and embellished by the genius of Mallory, Spenser, and Tennyson. — Winston S. Churchill

To call for close reading, in fact, is to do more than insist on due attentiveness to the text. It inescapably suggests an attention to this rather than to something else: to the 'words on the page' rather than to the contexts which produced and surround them. It implies a limiting as well as a focusing of concern - a limiting badly needed by literary talk which would ramble comfortably from the texture of Tennyson's language to the length of his beard. But in dispelling such anecdotal irrelevancies, 'close reading' also held at bay a good deal else: it encouraged the illusion that any piece of language, 'literary' or not, can be adequately studied or even understood in isolation. It was the beginnings of a 'reification' of the literary work, the treatment of it as an object in itself, which was to be triumphantly consummated in the American New Criticism. — Terry Eagleton

For this is England's greatest son, He that gain'd a hundred fights, And never lost an English gun. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

I waited for the train at Coventry; I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge, To watch the three tall spires; and there I shaped The city's ancient legend into this. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

There's no glory like those who save their country. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Love's arms were wreathed about the neck of Hope,
And Hope kiss'd Love, and Love drew in her breath
In that close kiss and drank her whisper'd tales.
They said that Love would die when Hope was gone.
And Love mourn'd long, and sorrow'd after Hope;
At last she sought out Memory, and they trod
The same old paths where Love had walked with Hope,
And Memory fed the soul of Love with tears. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

He makes no friends who never made a foe. — Alfred Tennyson

As your older brother, it's my sacred duty to save you from yourself."
She brings her fists down on the table, making all the dinner plates jump. "The ONLY reason you're fifteen minutes older than me is because you cut in front of the line, as usual! — Neal Shusterman

Bible reading is an education in itself. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

I found Him in the shining of the stars,
I marked Him in the flowering of His fields,
But in His ways with men I find Him not.
I waged His wars, and now I pass and die.
O me! for why is all around us here
As if some lesser god had made the world,
But had not force to shape it as he would,
Till the High God behold it from beyond,
And enter it, and make it beautiful? — Alfred Tennyson

The noonday quiet holds the hill. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

I know that age to age succeeds, Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds, A dust of systems and of creeds. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force, Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Read my little fable: He that runs may read. Most can raise the flowers now, For all have got the seed. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

It was easier to deal with Tennyson when he was fighting me; but having him on my side was frightening, because now I didn't know who the enemy was. — Neal Shusterman

All day within the dreamy house,
The doors upon their hinges creaked;
The blue fly sang in the pane; the mouse
Behind the mouldering wainscot shrieked,
Or from the crevice peered about.
Old faces glimmered through the doors,
Old footsteps trod the upper floors,
Old voices called her from without. . . . — Alfred Tennyson

Man's word is God in man. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

I am any man's suitor,
If any will be my tutor:
Some say this life is pleasant,
Some think it speedeth fast,
In time there is no present,
In eternity no future,
In eternity no past.
We laugh, we cry, we are born, we die.
Who will riddle me the how and the why? — Alfred Lord Tennyson

The woman's cause is man's. They rise or sink Together. / Dwarf'd or godlike, bound or free; miserable, / How shall men grow? - Let her be / All that not harms distinctive womanhood. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Ring out the false, ring in the true. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Happy he With such a mother! faith in womankind Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high Comes easy to him; and tho' he trip and fall, He shall not blind his soul with clay. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Not once or twice in our rough island story, The path of duty was the way to glory. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

There's not to reason why,
There's but to do and die — Alfred Tennyson

My office walls are covered with autographs of famous writers - it's what my children call my 'dead author wall.' I have signatures from Mark Twain, Earnest Hemingway, Jack London, Harriett Beecher Stowe, Pearl Buck, Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, to name a few. — Debbie Macomber

Tennyson and Browning are poets, and they think; but they do not feel their thought as immediately as the odour of a rose. A thought to Donne was an experience; it modified his sensibility. — T. S. Eliot

And what delights can equal those That stir the spirit's inner deeps, When one that loves but knows not, reaps A truth from one that loves and knows? — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Is there one in particular, Tennyson?" Henry said, ducking out from under her arm. "I could arrange a meeting."
"Yeah, the one from Texas ... what's his name?"
"That would be Dylan. But he's a nice guy and you'd break his heart. He dropped out of Texas A&M to come up here and saddle bum around with my horses year-round. Knowing your dad, I think you'd better be looking for a pre-med honors student."
"Leave my dad out of this. — Laura Anderson Kurk

This poem inspired me to write my eBook.

The Miller's Daughter by Alfred Lord Tennyson

It is the miller's daughter,
And she is grown so dear, so dear,
That I would be the jewel
That trembles in her ear;
For hid in ringlets day and night
I'd touch her neck so warm and white. — Ellen Read

I turn to our father, searching for an ally. "So Dad, is it legal for Bronte to date out of her species?"
Dad looks up from his various layers of pepperoni and breadless cheese. "Date?" he says. Apparently the idea of Bronte dating is like an electromagnet sucking away all other words in the sentence, so that's the only word he hears.
"You're not funny," Bronte says to me.
"No, I'm serious," I tell her. "Isn't he like ... a Sasquatch or something?"
"Date?" says Dad. — Neal Shusterman

Do you remember the Lady of Shalott? The mirror crack'd from side to side: 'The doom has come upon me,' cried the Lady of Shalott. Well, that's what she looked like. People laugh at Tennyson nowadays, but the Lady of Shalott always thrilled me when I was young and it still does. — Agatha Christie

Tis held that sorrow makes us wise. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

If there is one word that describes the meaning of character, it is the word honor. Without honor, civilization would not long exist. Without honor, there could be no dependable contracts, no lasting marriages, no trust or happiness. What does the word honor mean to you? To me, honor is summarized in this expression by the poet Tennyson, "Man's word [of honor] is God in man." — Ezra Taft Benson

Their's not to make reply, Their's not to reason why, Their's but to do and die: Into — Alfred Tennyson