Walter Landor Quotes & Sayings

As there are some flowers which you should smell but slightly to extract all that is pleasant in them ... so there are some men with whom a slight acquaintance is quite sufficient to draw out all that is agreeable; a more intimate one would be unsafe and unsatisfactory. — Walter Savage Landor

Merit has rarely risen of itself, but a pebble or a twig is often quite sufficient for it to spring from to the highest ascent. There is usually some baseness before there is any elevation. — Walter Savage Landor

In argument, truth always prevails finally; in politics, falsehood always. — Walter Savage Landor

Friendships are the purer and the more ardent, the nearer they come to the presence of God, the Sun not only of righteousness but of love. — Walter Savage Landor

That which moveth the heart most is the best poetry; it comes nearest unto God, the source of all power. — Walter Savage Landor

Many laws as certainly make bad men, as bad men make many laws. — Walter Savage Landor

We may receive so much light as not to see, and so much philosophy as to be worse than foolish. — Walter Savage Landor

A critic is never too severe when he only detects the faults of an author. But he is worse than too severe when, in consequence of this detection, be presumes to place himself on a level with genius. — Walter Savage Landor

Those who are quite satisfied sit still and do nothing; those who are not quite satisfied are the sole benefactors of the world. — Walter Savage Landor

Life and death appear more certainly ours than whatsoever else; and yet hardly can that be called ours, which comes without our knowledge, and goes without it. — Walter Savage Landor

I sometimes think that the most plaintive ditty has brought a fuller joy and of longer duration to its composer that the conquest of Persia to the Macedonian. — Walter Savage Landor

Vast objects of remote altitude must be looked at a long while before they are ascertained. Ages are the telescope tubes that must be lengthened out for Shakespeare; and generations of men serve but a single witness to his claims. — Walter Savage Landor

No good writer was ever long neglected; no great man overlooked by men equally great. Impatience is a proof of inferior strength, and a destroyer of what little there may be. — Walter Savage Landor

A great man knows the value of greatness; he dares not hazard it, he will not squander it. — Walter Savage Landor

Justice is often pale and melancholy; but Gratitude, her daughter, is constantly in the flow of spirits and the bloom of loveliness. — Walter Savage Landor

Virtue is presupposed in friendship. — Walter Savage Landor

We oftener say things because we can say them well, than because they are sound and reasonable. — Walter Savage Landor

In the morn of life we are alert, we are heated in its noon, and only in its decline do we repose. — Walter Savage Landor

Old trees in their living state are the only things that money cannot command. — Walter Savage Landor

The most pernicious of absurdities is that weak, blind, stupid faith is better than the constant practice of every human virtue. — Walter Savage Landor

Ambition does not see the earth she treads on: The rock and the herbage are of one substance to her. — Walter Savage Landor

This is the pleasantest part of life. Oblivion throws her light coverlet over our infancy; and, soon after we are out of the cradle we forget how soundly we had been slumbering, and how delightful were our dreams. Toil and pleasure contend for us almost the instant we rise from it: and weariness follows whichever has carried us away. We stop awhile, look around us, wonder to find we have completed the circle of existence, fold our arms, and fall asleep again. — Walter Savage Landor

Politeness is not always a sign of wisdom; but the want of it always leaves room for a suspicion of folly, if folly and imprudence are the same. — Walter Savage Landor

Something of the severe hath always been appertaining to order and to grace; and the beauty that is not too liberal is sought the most ardently, and loved the longest. — Walter Savage Landor

The wise become as the unwise in the enchanted chambers of Power, whose lamps make every face the same colour. — Walter Savage Landor

The deafest man can hear praise, and is slow to think any an excess. — Walter Savage Landor

Of all studies, the most delightful and the most useful is biography. The seeds of great events lie near the surface; historians delve too deep for them. No history was ever true. Lives I have read which, if they were not, had the appearance, the interest, and the utility of truth. — Walter Savage Landor

A mercantile democracy may govern long and widely; a mercantile aristocracy cannot stand. — Walter Savage Landor

Prose on certain occasions can bear a great deal of poetry; on the other hand, poetry sinks and swoons under a moderate weight of prose. — Walter Savage Landor

Of all failures, to fail in a witticism is the worst, and the mishap is the more calamitous in a drawn-out and detailed one — Walter Savage Landor

There is a gravity which is not austere nor captious, which belongs not to melancholy nor dwells in contraction of heart: but arises from tenderness and hangs upon reflection. — Walter Savage Landor

Nothing is pleasanter to me than exploring in a library. — Walter Savage Landor

Those who speak against the great do not usually speak from morality, but from envy. — Walter Savage Landor

The sweetest souls, like the sweetest flowers, soon canker in cities, and no purity is rarer there than the purity of delight. — Walter Savage Landor

Men, like nails, lose their usefulness when they lose their direction and begin to bend. — Walter Savage Landor

Goodness does not more certainly make men happy than happiness makes them good. — Walter Savage Landor

Consult duty not events. — Walter Savage Landor

A true philosopher is beyond the reach of fortune. — Walter Savage Landor

Hope is the mother of faith. — Walter Savage Landor

Truth sometimes corner unawares upon Caution, and sometimes speaks in public as unconsciously as in a dream. — Walter Savage Landor

The assailant is often in the right; the assailed is always. — Walter Savage Landor

The present, like a note in music, is nothing but as it appertains to what is past and what is to come. — Walter Savage Landor

True wit, to every man, is that which falls on another. — Walter Savage Landor

It often comes into my head That we may dream when we are dead, But I am far from sure we do. O that it were so! then my rest Would be indeed among the blest; I should for ever dream of you. — Walter Savage Landor

Ambition has but one reward for all: A little power, a little transient fame; A grave to rest in, and a fading name! — Walter Savage Landor

Principles do not mainly influence even the principled; we talk on principle, but we act on interest. — Walter Savage Landor

We listen to those whom we know to be of the same opinion as ourselves, and we call them wise for being of it; but we avoid such as differ from us. — Walter Savage Landor

We cannot be contented because we are happy, and we cannot be happy because we are contented. — Walter Savage Landor

My thoughts are my company; I can bring them together, select them, detain them, dismiss them. — Walter Savage Landor

Patience, piety, and salutary knowledge spring up and ripen under the harrow of affliction; before there is wine or oil, the grape must be trodden and the oil pressed. — Walter Savage Landor

We are poor, indeed, when we have no half-wishes left us. The heart and the imagination close the shutters the instant they are gone. — Walter Savage Landor

There is delight in singing, though none hear beside the singer. — Walter Savage Landor

Modesty and diffidence make a man unfit for public affairs; they also make him unfit for brothels. — Walter Savage Landor

The vain poet is of the opinion that nothing of his can be too much: he sends to you basketful after basketful of juiceless fruit, covered with scentless flowers. — Walter Savage Landor

How sweet and sacred idleness is! — Walter Savage Landor

Two evils, of almost equal weight, may befall the man of erudition; never to be listened to, and to be listened to always. — Walter Savage Landor

I never did a single wise thing in the whole course of my existence, although I have written many which have been thought so. — Walter Savage Landor

Other offences, even the greatest, are the violation of one law: despotism is the violation of all. — Walter Savage Landor

Whatever is worthy to be loved for anything is worthy of preservation. A wise and dispassionate legislator, if any such should ever arise among men, will not condemn to death him who has done or is likely to do more service than injury to society. Blocks and gibbets are the nearest objects with legislators, and their business is never with hopes or with virtues. — Walter Savage Landor

A good cook is the peculiar gift of the gods. He must be a perfect creature from the brain to the palate, from the palate to the finger's end. — Walter Savage Landor

Kings play at war unfairly with republics; they can only lose some earth, and some creatures they value as little, while republics lose in every soldier a part of themselves. — Walter Savage Landor

Even the weakest disputant is made so conceited by what he calls religion, as to think himself wiser than the wisest who think differently from him. — Walter Savage Landor

The damps of autumn sink into the leaves and prepare them for the necessity of their fall; and thus insensibly are we, as years close around us, detached from our tenacity of life by the gentle pressure of recorded sorrow. — Walter Savage Landor

No thoroughly occupied person was ever found really miserable. — Walter Savage Landor

The heart that once has been bathed in love's pure fountain retains the pulse of youth forever. — Walter Savage Landor

There is no eloquence which does not agitate the soul. — Walter Savage Landor

Friendship may sometimes step a few paces in advance of truth. — Walter Savage Landor

Every sect is a moral check on its neighbour. Competition is as wholesome in religion as in commerce. — Walter Savage Landor

There are proud men of so much delicacy that it almost conceals their pride, and perfectly excuses it. — Walter Savage Landor

The happy never say, and never hear said, farewell. — Walter Savage Landor

We must distinguish between felicity and prosperity; for prosperity leads often to ambition, and ambition to disappointment; the course is then over, the wheel turns round but once, while the reaction of goodness and happiness is perpetual. — Walter Savage Landor

Let a gentleman be known to have been cheated of twenty pounds, and it costs him forty a-year for the remainder of his life. — Walter Savage Landor

Democracy is always the work of kings. Ashes, which in themselves are sterile, fertilize the land they are cast upon. — Walter Savage Landor

Fleas know not whether they are upon the body of a giant or upon one of ordinary size. — Walter Savage Landor

The habit of pleasing by flattery makes a language soft; the fear of offending by truth makes it circuitous and conventional. — Walter Savage Landor

If there were no falsehood in the world, there would be no doubt, if there were no doubt, there would be no inquiry; if no inquiry, no wisdom, no knowledge, no genius; and Fancy herself would lie muffled up in her robe, inactive, pale, and bloated. — Walter Savage Landor

A smile is ever the most bright and beautiful with a tear upon it. What is the dawn without the dew? The tear is rendered by the smile precious above the smile itself. — Walter Savage Landor

He who brings ridicule to bear against truth finds in his hand a blade without a hilt. — Walter Savage Landor

Wisdom consisteth not in knowing many things, nor even in knowing them thoroughly; but in choosing and in following what conduces the most certainly to our lasting happiness and true glory. — Walter Savage Landor

To my ninth decade I have totter'd on, And no soft arm bends now my steps to steady; She, who once led me where she would, is gone, So when he calls me, Death shall find me ready. — Walter Savage Landor

Let me take up your metaphor. Friendship is a vase, which, when it is flawed by heat or violence or accident, may as well be broken at once; it can never be trusted after. The more graceful and ornamental it was, the more clearly do we discern the hopelessness of restoring it to its former state. Coarse stones, if they are fractured, may be cemented again; precious stones, never. — Walter Savage Landor

We talk on principal, but act on motivation. — Walter Savage Landor

Tyrants never perish from tyranny, but always from folly,-when their fantasies have built up a palace for which the earth has no foundation. — Walter Savage Landor

Ah what avails the sceptred race, Ah what the form divine! What every virtue, every grace! Rose Aylmer, all were thine. Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes May weep, but never see, A night of memories and of sighs I consecrate to thee. — Walter Savage Landor

Experience is our only teacher both in war and peace. — Walter Savage Landor

It appears to be among the laws of nature, that the mighty of intellect should be pursued and carped by the little, as the solitary flight of one great bird is followed by the twittering petulance of many smaller. — Walter Savage Landor

Every great writer is a writer of history, let him treat on almost any subject he may. — Walter Savage Landor

The Siren waits thee, singing song for song. — Walter Savage Landor

Truth is a point, the subtlest and finest; harder than adamant; never to be broken, worn away, or blunted. Its only bad quality is, that it is sure to hurt those who touch it; and likely to draw blood, perhaps the life blood, of those who press earnestly upon it. — Walter Savage Landor

Cats ask plainly for what they want. — Walter Savage Landor

All schools of philosophy, and almost all authors, are rather to be frequented for exercise than for weight. — Walter Savage Landor

I hate false words, and seek with care, difficulty, and moroseness, those that fit the thing. — Walter Savage Landor

The moderate are not usually the most sincere, for the same circumspection which makes them moderate makes them likewise retentive of what could give offence. — Walter Savage Landor

Kindness in ourselves is the honey that blunts the sting of unkindness in another. — Walter Savage Landor

Not dancing well, I never danced at all
and how grievously has my heart ached when others where in the full enjoyment of that conversation which I had no right even to partake. — Walter Savage Landor

Wherever there is excessive wealth, there is also in the train of it excessive poverty. — Walter Savage Landor

Every good writer has much idiom; it is the life and spirit of language. — Walter Savage Landor

Great men always pay deference to greater. — Walter Savage Landor

I warmed both hands before the fire of life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart. — Walter Savage Landor

Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art. — Walter Savage Landor