Many are poets, but without the name;For what is Poesy but to createFrom overfeeling Good or Ill; and aimAt an external life beyond our fate,And be the new Prometheus of new men,Bestowing fire from Heaven, and then, too late,Finding the pleasure given repaid with pain
Lord ByronWhat should I have known or written had I been a quiet, mercantile politician or a lord in waiting? A man must travel, and turmoil, or there is no existence.
Lord ByronI have a great mind to believe in Christianity for the mere pleasure of fancying I may be damned.
Lord ByronTime strips our illusions of their hue, And one by one in turn, some grand mistake Casts off its bright skin yearly like the snake.
Lord ByronI am never long, even in the society of her I love, without yearning for the company of my lamp and my library.
Lord ByronWhat men call gallantry, and gods adultery, is much more common where the climate's sultry.
Lord ByronBut words are things, and a small drop of ink, Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.
Lord ByronCervantes smiled Spain's chivalry away; A single laugh demolish'd the right arm Of his own country.
Lord ByronI have a passion for the name of "Mary," For once it was a magic sound to me, And still it half calls up the realms of fairy, Where I beheld what never was to be.
Lord ByronThere is something to me very softening in the presence of a woman, some strange influence, even if one is not in love with them, which I cannot at all account for, having no very high opinion of the sex. But yet, I always feel in better humor with myself and every thing else, if there is a woman within ken.
Lord ByronThe keenest pangs the wretched find Are rapture to the dreary void, The leafless desert of the mind, The waste of feelings unemployed.
Lord ByronYes, love indeed is light from heaven; A spark of that immortal fire with angels shared, by Allah given to lift from earth our low desire.
Lord ByronPythagoras, Locke, Socrates - but pages might be filled up, as vainly as before, with the sad usage of all sorts of sages, who in his life-time, each was deemed a bore! The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages.
Lord ByronI think the worst woman that ever existed would have made a man of very passable reputation -- they are all better than us and their faults such as they are must originate with ourselves.
Lord ByronSelf-love for ever creeps out, like a snake, to sting anything which happens to stumble upon it.
Lord ByronWhat is fame? The advantage of being known by people of whom you yourself know nothing, and for whom you care as little.
Lord Byron