Walter Savage Landor Quotes - Page 8

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

There is a desire of property in the sanest and best men, which Nature seems to have implanted as conservative of her works, and which is necessary to encourage and keep alive the arts.

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

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

We care not how many see us in choler, when we rave and bluster, and make as much noise and bustle as we can; but if the kindest and most generous affection comes across us, we suppress every sign of it, and hide ourselves in nooks and covert.

In the hours of distress and misery, the eyes of every mortal turn to friendship; in the hours of gladness and conviviality, what is our want? It is friendship. When the heart overflows with gratitude, or with any other sweet or sacred sentiment, what is the word to which it would give utterance? A friend.

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

And Modesty, who, when she goes, Is gone for ever.

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.

The only effect of public punishment is to show the rabble how bravely it can be borne; and that every one who hath lost a toe-nail hath suffered worse.

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

Religion is the eldest sister of philosophy: on whatever subjects they may differ, it is unbecoming in either to quarrel, and most so about their inheritance.

We fancy that our afflictions are sent us directly from above; sometimes we think it in piety and contrition, but oftener in moroseness and discontent.

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.

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

O what a thing is age! Death without death's quiet.

Men universally are ungrateful towards him who instructs them, unless, in the hours or in the intervals of instruction, he presents a sweet-cake to their self-love.

A wise man will always be a Christian, because the perfection of wisdom is to know where lies tranquillity of mind and how to attain it, which Christianity teaches.

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.

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.

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

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

God made the rose out of what was left of woman at the creation. The great difference is, we feel the rose's thorns when we gather it; and the other's when we have had it for some time.

In argument, truth always prevails finally; in politics, falsehood always.

I see the rainbow in the sky, the dew upon the grass; I see them, and I ask not why they glimmer or they pass. With folded arms I linger not to call them back; 'twere vain: In this, or in some other spot, I know they'll shine again.