All Quotes

"In point of fact, however, they were much more anxious to tell him about their doings than to listen to his."

"Passion is destructive; if it does not destroy, it dies."

"Nothing in the world is permanent, and we're foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we're still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it. If change is of the essence of existence one would have thought it only sensible to make it the premise of our philosophy."

"I thought I should be a fool to allow work to interfere with a delight in the passing moment that I might never enjoy again so fully."

"He was the kind of man with whom one would have hesitated to pass a lonely evening, but with whom one might cheerfully have looked forward to spending six months."

"It may be that if I lead the life I've planned for myself it may affect others; the effect may be no greater than the ripple caused by a stone thrown in a pond, but one ripple causes another."

"Almost all the people who have had most effect on me I seem to have met by chance."

"Don't you know? Because American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in their butlers."

"Things don't get any easier by putting them off."

"He found himself now in the agreeable situation of being able to do what was best for others and at the same time what was convenient to himself."

"There are men who are possessed by an urge so strong to do some particular thing that they can't help themselves, they've got to do it. They're prepared to sacrifice everything to satisfy their yearning."

"Women are always glad to listen when you discourse upon love..."

"Passion doesn't count the cost. ... Passion is destructive."

"In art honesty is not only the best but the only policy."

"Religion is...a conspiracy of...priests to gain control over the people..."

"The sad Don Quixote of a worthless purpose."

"A god that can be understood is not a god."

"Considering how foolishly people act and how pleasantly they prattle, perhaps it would be better for the world if they talked more and did less."

"The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned."

"Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams."

"The more intelligent a man is the more capable is he of suffering."

"Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradicable."

"Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequences than to have a really affectionate mother."

"There is no object to life. To nature nothing matters but the continuation of the species."

"You are always new. The last of your kisses was ever the sweetest; the last smile the brightest; the last movement the gracefullest."

"You might curb your magnanimity, and be more of an artist, and load every rift of your subject with ore."

"I can scarcely bid you good-bye, even in a letter. I always made an awkward bow. God bless you!"

"I stood tip-toe upon a little hill, The air was cooling, and so very still, That the sweet buds which with a modest pride Pull droopingly, in slanting curve aside, Their scantly leaved, and finely tapering stems, Had not yet lost those starry diadems Caught from the early sobbing of the morn."

"And then there crept A little noiseless noise among the leaves, Born of the very sigh that silence heaves."

"Open afresh your round of starry folds, Ye ardent marigolds!"

"Why, you might read two sonnets, ere they reach To where the hurrying freshnesses aye preach A natural sermon o'er their pebbly beds; Where swarms of minnows show their little heads, Staying their wavy bodies ’gainst the streams, To taste the luxury of sunny beams Temper’d with coolness."

"Sometimes goldfinches one by one will drop From low hung branches; little space they stop; But sip, and twitter, and their feathers sleek; Then off at once, as in a wanton freak: Or perhaps, to show their black, and golden wings Pausing upon their yellow flutterings."

"Nought but a lovely sighing of the wind Along the reedy stream; a half-heard strain, Full of sweet desolation—balmy pain."

"Woman! when I behold thee flippant, vain, Inconstant, childish, proud, and full of fancies."

"To one who has been long in city pent, ’Tis very sweet to look into the fair And open face of heaven."

"E’en like the passage of an angel’s tear That falls through the clear ether silently."

"Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne, Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific, and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise, Silent, upon a peak in Darien."

"And other spirits there are standing apart Upon the forehead of the age to come; These, these will give the world another heart, And other pulses. Hear ye not the hum Of mighty workings in a distant mart? Listen awhile ye nations, and be dumb."

"The poetry of earth is never dead."

"Stop and consider! life is but a day; A fragile dew-drop on its perilous way From a tree's summit."

"O for ten years, that I may overwhelm Myself in poesy; so I may do the deed That my own soul has to itself decreed."

"A drainless shower Of light is poesy; ’tis the supreme of power; ’Tis might half slumb’ring on its own right arm."

"But strength alone though of the Muses born Is like a fallen angel: trees uptorn, Darkness, and worms, and shrouds, and sepulchres Delight it; for it feeds upon the burrs, And thorns of life; forgetting the great end Of poesy, that it should be a friend To sooth the cares, and lift the thoughts of man."

"The sweet converse of an innocent mind."

"There is not a fiercer hell than the failure in a great object."

"The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition thicksighted: thence proceeds mawkishness, and the thousand bitters which those men I speak of must necessarily taste in going over the following pages."

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing."

"In spite of all, Some shape of beauty moves away the pall From our dark spirits."

"The grandeur of the dooms We have imagined for the mighty dead; All lovely tales that we have heard or read: An endless fountain of immortal drink, Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink."

"Nor do we merely feel these essences For one short hour; no, even as the trees That whisper round a temple become soon Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon, The passion poesy, glories infinite, Haunt us till they become a cheering light Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast, That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast, They alway must be with us, or we die."