WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR QUOTES III

English writer and poet (1775-1864)

The very beautiful rarely love at all; those precious images are placed above the reach of the passions: Time alone is permitted to efface them.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Pericles and Aspasia

Tags: beauty


Men, like nails, lose their usefulness when they lose their direction and begin to bend: such nails are then thrown into the dust or into the furnace.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Imaginary Conversations


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

The Letters of Walter Savage Landor to Marguerite, Countess of Blessington

Tags: dancing


Piety--warm, soft, and passive as the ether round the throne of Grace--is made callous and inactive by kneeling too much.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Imaginary Conversations

Tags: piety


The eyes of critics, whether in commending or carping, are both on one side, like a turbot's.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

The Pentameron: Citation and Examination of William Shakespeare

Tags: criticism


Death stands above me, whispering low
I know not what into my ear:
Of his strange language all I know
Is, there is not a word of fear.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Death Stands above Me, Whispering Low

Tags: death


Principles do not much influence the unprincipled, nor mainly the principled.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen

Tags: principles


As we sometimes find one thing while we are looking for another, so, if truth escaped me, happiness and contentment fell in my way.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Pericles and Aspasia


Why cannot we be delighted with an author, and even feel a predilection for him, without a dislike of others? An admiration of Catullus or Virgil, of Tibullus or Ovid, is never to be heightened by a discharge of bile on Horace.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

The Pentameron: Citation and Examination of William Shakespeare

Tags: Horace


Every witticism is an inexact thought; that which is perfectly true is imperfectly witty.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Imaginary Conversations of Greeks and Romans

Tags: wit


Happiness, like air and water, the other two great requisites of life, is composite. One kind of it suits one man, another kind another. The elevated mind takes in and breathes out again that which would be uncongenial to the baser; and the baser draws life and enjoyment from that which would be putridity to the loftier.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Imaginary Conversations

Tags: happiness


There is only one word of tenderness we could say, which we have not said oftentimes before ; and there is no consolation in it. The happy never say, and never hear said, farewell.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Pericles and Aspasia


Toleration is in itself the essence of Christianity, and the very point which the founder of it most peculiarly enjoined.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Dialogues of Sovereigns and Statesmen

Tags: tolerance


We talk on principle, but we act on interest.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen

Tags: principles


Gambling is the origin of more extensive misery than all other crimes put together; and the mischief falls principally on the unoffending and helpless; it leads, by insensible degrees, a greater number of wretches to the gallows than the higher atrocities from which that terminus is seen more plainly.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Imaginary Conversations

Tags: gambling


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.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

The Book of Friendship

Tags: friendship


I am grieved at your sorrow, although it will hereafter be a source of joy unto you. The purest water runs from the hardest rock.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Imaginary Conversations

Tags: sorrow


A man's vanity tells him what is honor, a man's conscience what is justice.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Imaginary Conversations

Tags: conscience


Harmonious words render ordinary ideas acceptable; less ordinary, pleasant; novel and ingenious ones, delightful.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Aphorisms

Tags: harmony


Many laws as certainly make bad men, as bad men make many laws.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Imaginary Conversations

Tags: law