Lord Byron Quotes

And mine’s a bubble not blown up for praise, But just to play with, as an infant plays.

The world is a bundle of hay,
Mankind are the asses that pull,
Each tugs in a different way—
And the greatest of all is John Bull!

Gwynned lies two days westwards; still further south, the weregeld calls. Mayhap with All-Father Woden's favour, my deeds may yet inspire the skalds.

There 's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away.

She was his life,
The ocean to the river of his thoughts, Which terminated all.

There is an order
Of mortals on the earth, who do become
Old in their youth, and die ere middle age,
Without the violence of warlike death;
Some perishing of pleasure, some of study,
Some worn with toil, some of mere weariness,
Some of disease, and some insanity,
And some of wither’d or of broken hearts;
For this last is a malady which slays
More than are number’d in the lists of Fate,
Taking all shapes and bearing many names.

Tis sweet to hear the watchdog’s honest bark
Bay deep- mouth’d welcome as we draw near home;
’Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark
Our coming, and look brighter when we come;
’Tis sweet to be awaken’d by the lark,
Or lull’d by falling waters; sweet the hum
Of bees, the voice of girls, the song of birds,
The lisp of children, and their earliest words.

Such hath it been — shall be — beneath the sun
The many still must labour for the one!

When we have made our love and gamed our gaming, Drest, voted, shone, and maybe something more; With dandies dined, heard senators declaiming, Seen beauties brought to market by the score, Sad rakes to sadder husbands chastely taming, There’s little left but to be bored or bore. Witness those ci-devant jeunes hommes who stem The stream, nor leave the world which leaveth them.

They accuse me — Me — the present writer of
The present poem — of — I know not what, — A tendency to under-rate and scoff
At human power and virtue, and all that;
And this they say in language rather rough.
Good God! I wonder what they would be at!
I say no more than has been said in Dante's
Verse, and by Solomon and by Cervantes;

By Swift, by Machiavel, by Rochefoucault;
By Fenelon, by Luther and by Plato;
By Tillotson, and Wesley, and Rousseau,
Who knew this life was not worth a potato.
'Tis not their fault, nor mine, if this be so — For my part, I pretend not to be Cato,
Nor even Diogenes. — We live and die,
But which is best, you know no more than I.

Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen, Count o'er thy days from anguish free, And know, whatever thou hast been, 'Tis something better not to be. [First published, Childe Harold, 1812

The heart will break, but broken live on.

Perfect she was, but as perfection is
Insipid in this naughty world of ours,

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

Sublime tobacco! which from east to west
Cheers the tar's labor or the Turkman's rest.