Walter Savage Landor Quotes

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 vain poet is of the opinion that nothing of his can be too much: he sends to you basketful after basketful of juiceless fruit, covered with scentless flowers.

He who brings ridicule to bear against truth finds in his hand a blade without a hilt.

We fancy we suffer from ingratitude, while in reality we suffer from self-love.

We enter our studies, and enjoy a society which we alone can bring together. We raise no jealousy by conversing with one in preference to another; we give no offence to the most illustrious by questioning him as long as we will, and leaving him as abruptly. Diversity of opinion raises no tumult in our presence: each interlocutor stands before us, speaks or is silent, and we adjourn or decide the business at our leisure.

Great men lose somewhat of their greatness by being near us; ordinary men gain much.

If there were no falsehood in the world, there would be no doubt, if there were no doubt, there would be no inquiry; if no inquiry, no wisdom, no knowledge, no genius; and Fancy herself would lie muffled up in her robe, inactive, pale, and bloated.

It appears to be among the laws of nature, that the mighty of intellect should be pursued and carped by the little, as the solitary flight of one great bird is followed by the twittering petulance of many smaller.

A smile is ever the most bright and beautiful with a tear upon it. What is the dawn without the dew? The tear is rendered by the smile precious above the smile itself.

There are proud men of so much delicacy that it almost conceals their pride, and perfectly excuses it.

The spirit of Greece, passing through and ascending above the world, hath so animated universal nature, that the very rocks and woods, the very torrents and wilds burst forth with it.

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

That which moveth the heart most is the best poetry; it comes nearest unto God, the source of all power.

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

Moroseness is the evening of turbulence.

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

Music is God's gift to man, the only art of Heaven given to earth, the only art of earth we take to Heaven.

Cruelty in all countries is the companion of anger; but there is only one, and never was another on the globe, where she coquets both with anger and mirth.

Teach him to live unto God and unto thee; and he will discover that women, like the plants in woods, derive their softness and tenderness from the shade.

We may receive so much light as not to see, and so much philosophy as to be worse than foolish.

We oftener say things because we can say them well, than because they are sound and reasonable.

Those who speak against the great do not usually speak from morality, but from envy.

Every good writer has much idiom; it is the life and spirit of language.

We cannot at once catch the applauses of the vulgar and expect the approbation of the wise.

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.

A true philosopher is beyond the reach of fortune.

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.

Justice is often pale and melancholy; but Gratitude, her daughter, is constantly in the flow of spirits and the bloom of loveliness.

Nothing is pleasanter to me than exploring in a library.

Nations, like individuals, interest us in their growth.

Solitude is the audience-chamber of God.

Authors are like cattle going to a fair: those of the same field can never move on without butting one another.

Contentment is better than divinations or visions.

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.

Something of the severe hath always been appertaining to order and to grace; and the beauty that is not too liberal is sought the most ardently, and loved the longest.

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

Children are what the mothers are.

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

Old trees in their living state are the only things that money cannot command.

It is easy to look down on others; to look down on ourselves is the difficulty.

Greatness, as we daily see it, is unsociable.

He who brings ridicule to bear against truth finds in his hand a blade without a hilt. The most sparkling and pointed flame of wit flickers and expires against the incombustible walls of her sanctuary.

Be assured that, although men of eminent genius have been guilty of all other vices, none worthy of more than a secondary name has ever been a gamester. Either an excess of avarice or a deficiency of what, in physics, is called excitability, is the cause of it; neither of which can exist in the same bosom with genius, with patriotism, or with virtue.

Was genius ever ungrateful? Mere talents are dry leaves, tossed up and down by gusts of passion, and scattered and swept away; but, Genius lies on the bosom of Memory, and Gratitude at her feet.

We must distinguish between felicity and prosperity; for prosperity leads often to ambition, and ambition to disappointment; the course is then over, the wheel turns round but once, while the reaction of goodness and happiness is perpetual.

Delay in justice is injustice.

What is reading but silent conversation?

I sometimes think that the most plaintive ditty has brought a fuller joy and of longer duration to its composer that the conquest of Persia to the Macedonian.