Alfred Austin Quotes

Lo, where huge London, huger day by day,
O'er six fair counties spreads its hideous sway.

Love and naughtiness are always in their teens.

[I]n all periods of transitional thought and belief the conscience suffers, since its old sanctions have been removed and none other have yet taken their place. It is undermined without being adequately propped up.

[E]xclusiveness in a garden is a mistake as great as it is in society.

[T]he Caesars of this world act sagaciously, perhaps, in making as much of their purple as possible. The world is largely governed by tailors and upholsterers.

Doth logic in the lily hide,
And where's the reason in the rose?

If Nature built by rule and square,
Than man what wiser would she be?
What wins us is her careless care,
And sweet unpunctuality.

A little knowledge is said to be a dangerous thing, but it is not dangerous to the imagination. Knowledge is to the imagination what fuel is to flame. A little feeds it; a great deal extinguishes it.

All imitation is exaggeration.

Death is the looking-glass of life wherein
Each man may scan the aspect of his deeds.

[N]o verse which is unmusical or obscure can be regarded as Poetry, whatever other qualities it may possess.

Goodnight! Now dwindle wan and low
The embers of the afterglow,
And slowly over leaf and lawn
Is twilight's dewy curtain drawn.

He is dead already who doth not feel
Life is worth living still.

Let Will but set its appetite on war,
And Reason will promptly invent offence,
And furnish blood with arguments.

And Clara dies that Claribel may dance.