Walter Savage Landor Quotes

Death stands above me, whispering low I know not what into my ear; Of his strange language all I know Is, there is not a word of fear.

There is no more certain sign of a narrow mind, of stupidity, and of arrogance, than to stand aloof from those who think differently from us.

Study is the bane of childhood, the oil of youth, the indulgence of adulthood, and a restorative in old age.

Where power is absent we may find the robe of genius, but we miss the throne.

Wherever there is excessive wealth, there is also in the train of it excessive poverty.

If in argument we can make a man angry with us, we have drawn him from his vantage ground and overcome him.

Circumstances form the character; but, like petrifying matters, they harden while they form.

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.

Falsehood is for a season.

As there are some flowers which you should smell but slightly to extract all that is pleasant in them ... so there are some men with whom a slight acquaintance is quite sufficient to draw out all that is agreeable; a more intimate one would be unsafe and unsatisfactory.

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.

There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.

Ambition is but avarice on stilts, and masked. God sometimes sends a famine, sometimes a pestilence, and sometimes a hero, for the chastisement of mankind; none of them surely for our admiration.

No truer word, save God's, was ever spoken, Than that the largest heart is soonest broken.

Immoderate power, like other intemperance, leaves the progeny weaker and weaker, until nature as in compassion covers it with her mantle and it is seen no more.

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

The happy never say, and never hear said, farewell.

Friendships are the purer and the more ardent, the nearer they come to the presence of God, the Sun not only of righteousness but of love.

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife. Nature I loved and, next to Nature, Art: I warm'd both hands before the fire of life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart.

As the pearl ripens in the obscurity of its shell, so ripens in the tomb all the fame that is truly precious.

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

The tomb is the pedestal of greatness. I make a distinction between God's great and the king's great.

It has been my fortune to love in general those men most who have thought most differently from me, on subjects wherein others pardon no discordance. I think I have no more right to be angry with a man, whose reason has followed up a process different from what mine has, and is satisfied with the result, than with one who has gone to Venice while I am at Siena, and who writes to me that he likes the place.

Principles do not mainly influence even the principled; we talk on principle, but we act on interest.

Cats like men are flatterers.

Wrong is but falsehood put in practice.

Democracy is always the work of kings. Ashes, which in themselves are sterile, fertilize the land they are cast upon.

My thoughts are my company; I can bring them together, select them, detain them, dismiss them.

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.

Goodness does not more certainly make men happy than happiness makes them good.

Merit has rarely risen of itself, but a pebble or a twig is often quite sufficient for it to spring from to the highest ascent. There is usually some baseness before there is any elevation.

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

When a cat flatters ... he is not insincere: you may safely take it for real kindness.

The Siren waits thee, singing song for song.

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

When a woman hath ceased to be quite the same to us, it matters little how different she becomes.

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.

A critic is never too severe when he only detects the faults of an author. But he is worse than too severe when, in consequence of this detection, be presumes to place himself on a level with genius.

States, like men, have their growth, their manhood, their decrepitude, their decay.

Experience is our only teacher both in war and peace.

We are no longer happy so soon as we wish to be happier.

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.

Truth is a point, the subtlest and finest; harder than adamant; never to be broken, worn away, or blunted. Its only bad quality is, that it is sure to hurt those who touch it; and likely to draw blood, perhaps the life blood, of those who press earnestly upon it.

In the morn of life we are alert, we are heated in its noon, and only in its decline do we repose.

Consult duty not events.