Walter Savage Landor Quotes - Page 3

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.

Everything that looks to the future elevates human nature.

Clear writers, like fountains, do not seem so deep as they are; the turbid look the most profound.

Heat and animosity, contest and conflict, may sharpen the wits, although they rarely do; they never strengthen the understanding, clear the perspicacity, guide the judgment, or improve the heart.

Wise or unwise, who doubts for a moment that contentment is the cause of happiness? Yet the inverse is true: we are contented because we are happy, and not happy because we are contented. Well-regulated minds may be satisfied with a small portion of happiness; none can be happy with a small portion of content.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Shakespeare is not our poet, but the world's.

A true philosopher is beyond the reach of fortune.

Ridicule has followed the vestiges of truth, but never usurped her place.

Children are what the mothers are.

The writing of the wise are the only riches our posterity cannot squander.

There is delight in singing, though none hear beside the singer.

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

Every great writer is a writer of history, let him treat on almost what subject he may.

An ingenious mind feels in unmerited praise the bitterest reproof.

Those who in living fill the smallest space, In death have often left the greatest void.

The foundation of domestic happiness is faith in the virtue of woman.

Do not expect to be acknowledged for what you are, much less for what you would be; since no one can well measure a great man but upon the bier.

The flame of anger, bright and brief, sharpens the barb of love.

The Siren waits thee, singing song for song.