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Absence
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No more we meet in yonder bowers Absence has made me prone to roving; But older, firmer hearts than ours, Have found monotony in loving.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Absurdity
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My turn of mind is so given to taking things in the absurd point of view, that it breaks out in spite of me every now and then.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Actors, Acting
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I am acquainted with no immaterial sensuality so delightful as good acting.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Adventure
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And yet a little tumult, now and then, is an agreeable quickener of sensation; such as a revolution, a battle, or an adventure of any lively description.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Adversity
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It is odd but agitation or contest of any kind gives a rebound to my spirits and sets me up for a time.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Adversity is the first path to truth.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron, Don Juan
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Age
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Of all the barbarous middle ages, that which is most barbarous is the middle age of man! it is -- I really scarce know what; but when we hover between fool and sage, and don't know justly what we would be at -- a period something like a printed page, black letter upon foolscap, while our hair grows grizzled, and we are not what we were.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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What is the worst of woes that wait on age? What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow? To view each loved one blotted from life's page, And be alone on earth, as I am now.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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My time has been passed viciously and agreeably; at thirty-one so few years months days hours or minutes remain that Carpe Diem is not enough. I have been obliged to crop even the seconds -- for who can trust to tomorrow?
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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A lady of a certain age, which means certainly aged.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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I always looked to about thirty as the barrier of any real or fierce delight in the passions, and determined to work them out in the younger ore and better veins of the mine --and I flatter myself (perhaps) that I have pretty well done so --and now the dross is coming.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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I shall soon be six-and-twenty. Is there anything in the future that can possibly console us for not being always twenty-five?
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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It was one of the deadliest and heaviest feelings of my life to feel that I was no longer a boy. From that moment I began to grow old in my own esteem --and in my esteem age is not estimable.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Thy decay's still impregnate with divinity.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Alcohol/Alcoholism
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Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter. Sermons and soda water the day after.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Man, being reasonable, must get drunk; the best of life is but intoxication.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Ambition
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He who surpasses or subdues mankind, must look down on the hate of those below.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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As falls the dew on quenchless sands, blood only serves to wash ambition's hands.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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America
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America is a model of force and freedom and moderation -- with all the coarseness and rudeness of its people.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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I would rather have a nod from an American, than a snuff-box from an emperor.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Angels
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The Angels were all singing out of tune, and hoarse with having little else to do, excepting to wind up the sun and moon or curb a runaway young star or two.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Animals
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The poor dog, in life the firmest friend. The first to welcome, foremost to defend.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Appearance
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Think not I am what I appear.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Authors & Writing
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But I hate things all fiction... there should always be some foundation of fact for the most airy fabric -- and pure invention is but the talent of a liar.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Romances I never read like those I have seen.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Nothing so fretful, so despicable as a Scribbler, see what I am, and what a parcel of Scoundrels I have brought about my ears, and what language I have been obliged to treat them with to deal with them in their own way; -- all this comes of Authorship.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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To withdraw myself from myself has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive in scribbling at all.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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In general I do not draw well with literary men -- not that I dislike them but I never know what to say to them after I have praised their last publication.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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If I don't write to empty my mind, I go mad. As to that regular, uninterrupted love of writing. I do not understand it. I feel it as a torture, which I must get rid of, but never as a pleasure. On the contrary, I think composition a great pain.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Belief
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All are inclined to believe what they covet, from a lottery-ticket up to a passport to Paradise.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Birth
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What a strange thing is the propagation of life! A bubble of seed which may be spilt in a whore's lap, or in the orgasm of a voluptuous dream, might (for aught we know) have formed a Caesar or a Bonaparte -- there is nothing remarkable recorded of their sires, that I know of.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Birthdays
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Here lies interred in the eternity of the past, from whence there is no resurrection for the days -- whatever there may be for the dust -- the thirty-third year of an ill-spent life, which, after a lingering disease of many months sank into a lethargy, and expired, January 22d, 1821, A.D. leaving a successor inconsolable for the very loss which occasioned its existence.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Bravery
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The French courage proceeds from vanity
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Chance
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Men are the sport of circumstances when it seems circumstances are the sport of men.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Change
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The lapse of ages changes all things -- time, language, the earth, the bounds of the sea, the stars of the sky, and every thing about, around, and underneath man, except man himself.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Chaos
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Out of chaos God made a world, and out of high passions comes a people.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Charity
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All who joy would win must share it. Happiness was born a Twin.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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I do detest everything which is not perfectly mutual.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Christianity
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I have a great mind to believe in Christianity for the mere pleasure of fancying I may be damned.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Communism
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I only go out to get me a fresh appetite for being alone.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Concentration
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Our thoughts take the wildest flight: Even at the moment when they should arrange themselves in thoughtful order.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Conscience
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No ear can hear nor tongue can tell the tortures of the inward hell!
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Contentment
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There's naught, no doubt, so much the spirit calms as rum and true religion.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Contradiction
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What an antithetical mind! -- tenderness, roughness -- delicacy, coarseness -- sentiment, sensuality -- soaring and groveling, dirt and deity -- all mixed up in that one compound of inspired clay!
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Credit
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O Gold! I still prefer thee unto paper, which makes bank credit like a bark of vapor.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Criticism
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A man must serve his time to every trade save censure -- critics all are ready made.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Critics are already made.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Crying
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Oh! too convincing -- dangerously dear -- In woman's eye the unanswerable tear!
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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The drying up a single tear has more of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Curiosity
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That low vice, curiosity!
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Cynicism
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Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Death
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For the sword outwears its sheath, and the soul wears out the breast. And the heart must pause to breathe, and love itself have rest.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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I have seen a thousand graves opened, and always perceived that whatever was gone, the teeth and hair remained of those who had died with them. Is not this odd? They go the very first things in youth and yet last the longest in the dust.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Death, so called, is a thing which makes men weep, and yet a third of life is passed in sleep.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd;
And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron, Destruction of Sennacherib, The
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Debt / Borrow / Loan
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Dreading that climax of all human ills the inflammation of his weekly bills.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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It is very iniquitous to make me pay my debts -- you have no idea of the pain it gives one.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Deception/Lying
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And after all, what is a lie?
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron, Don Juan. Canto xi. Stanza 37
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Dissent
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I stood among them, but not of them; in a shroud of thoughts which were not their thoughts.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Doubt
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If I am fool, it is, at least, a doubting one; and I envy no one the certainty of his self-approved wisdom.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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There is something pagan in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Education
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This place is the Devil, or at least his principal residence, they call it the University, but any other appellation would have suited it much better, for study is the last pursuit of the society; the Master eats, drinks, and sleeps, the Fellows drink, dispute and pun, the employments of the undergraduates you will probably conjecture without my description.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Empire
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A thousand years may scare form a state. An hour may lay it in ruins.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Endurance
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Prolonged endurance tames the bold.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Envy / Jealousy
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Who surpasses or subdues mankind, must look down on the hate of those below.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Epitaphs
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Posterity will never survey a nobler grave than this: here lie the bones of Castlereagh: stop, traveler, and piss.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Excuses
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Your letter of excuses has arrived. I receive the letter but do not admit the excuses except in courtesy, as when a man treads on your toes and begs your pardon -- the pardon is granted, but the joint aches, especially if there is a corn upon it.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Faith
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It is useless to tell one not to reason but to believe --you might as well tell a man not to wake but sleep.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Fame
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I awoke one morning and found myself famous.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Folly loves the martyrdom of fame.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Fame is the thirst of youth.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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My great comfort is, that the temporary celebrity I have wrung from the world has been in the very teeth of all opinions and prejudices. I have flattered no ruling powers; I have never concealed a single thought that tempted me.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Fantasy
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The mind can make substance, and people planets of its own with beings brighter than have been, and give a breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Fate & Destiny
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I have always believed that all things depended upon Fortune, and nothing upon ourselves.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Tempted fate will leave the loftiest star.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Flattery
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The reason that adulation is not displeasing is that, though untrue, it shows one to be of consequence enough, in one way or other, to induce people to lie.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Food
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A woman should never be seen eating or drinking, unless it be lobster salad and Champagne, the only true feminine and becoming viands.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Forgiveness
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The beginning of atonement is the sense of its necessity.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Freedom
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Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying, streams like the thunderstorm against the wind.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Friends
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A mistress never is nor can be a friend. While you agree, you are lovers; and when it is over, anything but friends.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Friendship is Love without his wings!
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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I have always laid it down as a maxim --and found it justified by experience --that a man and a woman make far better friendships than can exist between two of the same sex --but then with the condition that they never have made or are to make love to each other.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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I have had, and may have still, a thousand friends, as they are called, in life, who are like one's partners in the waltz of this world --not much remembered when the ball is over.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Gambling (Gaming)
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I have a notion that gamblers are as happy as most people, being always excited; women, wine, fame, the table, even ambition, sate now and then, but every turn of the card and cast of the dice keeps the gambler alive -- besides one can game ten times longer than one can do any thing else.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Genius
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I really cannot know whether I am or am not the Genius you are pleased to call me, but I am very willing to put up with the mistake, if it be one. It is a title dearly enough bought by most men, to render it endurable, even when not quite clearly made out, which it never can be till the Posterity, whose decisions are merely dreams to ourselves, has sanctioned or denied it, while it can touch us no further.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Glory
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Who tracks the steps of glory to the grave?
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Government
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The king-times are fast finishing. There will be blood shed like water, and tears like mist; but the peoples will conquer in the end. I shall not live to see it, but I foresee it.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Greatness & Great Things
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Sighing that Nature formed but one such man, and broke the die.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Greed
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So for a good old-gentlemanly vice, I think I must take up with avarice.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Happiness
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To have joy one must share it. Happiness was born a twin.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Hate
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Hatred is the madness of the heart.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Heart
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The heart will break, but broken live on.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Hell
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I cannot help thinking that the menace of Hell makes as many devils as the severe penal codes of inhuman humanity make villains.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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History
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History is the devil's scripture.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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And having wisdom with each studious year, in meditation dwelt, with learning wrought, and shaped his weapon with an edge severe, sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Home
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The place is very well and quiet and the children only scream in a low voice.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Hope
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But what is Hope? Nothing but the paint on the face of Existence; the least touch of truth rubs it off, and then we see what a hollow-cheeked harlot we have got hold of.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron, Letter to Thomas Moore, Byron's Letters and Journals, vol. 4, ed. Leslie Marchand (1975)
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Humanity
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Man is born passionate of body, but with an innate though secret tendency to the love of Good in his main-spring of Mind. But God help us all! It is at present a sad jar of atoms.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Hypocrisy
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Keep thy smooth words and juggling homilies for those who know thee not.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Ignorance & Stupidity
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The Cardinal is at his wit's end -- it is true that he had not far to go.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Imagination
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If a man proves too clearly and convincingly to himself...that a tiger is an optical illusion--well, he will find out he is wrong. The tiger will himself intervene in the discussion, in a manner which will be in every sense conclusive.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Immortality
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It has been said that the immortality of the soul is a grand peut-tre --but still it is a grand one. Everybody clings to it --the stupidest, and dullest, and wickedest of human bipeds is still persuaded that he is immortal.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Infidelity
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What men call gallantry, and gods adultery, is much more common where the climate's sultry.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Inheritance
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For pleasures past I do not grieve, nor perils gathering near; My greatest grief is that I leave nothing that claims a tear.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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The way to be immortal (I mean not to die at all) is to have me for your heir. I recommend you to put me in your will and you will see that (as long as I live at least) you will never even catch cold.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Intuition
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There is no instinct like that of the heart.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Inventing, Inventions
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This is the patent age of new inventions for killing bodies, and for saving souls. All propagated with the best intentions.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Irony
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So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain,
No more through rolling clouds to soar again,
View'd his own feather on the fatal dart,
And wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his heart.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers
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Kindness
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The dew of compassion is a tear.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Kisses
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Oh! might I kiss those eyes of fire,
A million scarce would quench desire;
Still would I steep my lips in bliss,
And dwell an age on every kiss;
Nor then my soul should sated be,
Still would I kiss and cling to thee:
Nought should my kiss from thine dissever,
Still would we kiss and kiss for ever;
E'en though the numbers did exceed
The yellow harvest's countless seed;
To part would be a vain endeavour:
Could I desist?--ah! never--never.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron, Imitated from Catullus. To Ellen
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Last Words
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All farewells should be sudden, when forever.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Laughter
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Nothing can confound a wise man more than laughter from a dunce.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy,
And the dimpling stream runs laughing by;
When the air does laugh with our merry wit,
And the green hill laughs with the noise of it.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Leadership
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When we think we lead we are most led.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Learning
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With just enough of learning to misquote.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Letters (writing)
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Letter writing is the only device for combining solitude with good company.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Liberty
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It is not one man nor a million, but the spirit of liberty that must be preserved. The waves which dash upon the shore are, one by one, broken, but the ocean conquers nevertheless. It overwhelms the Armada, it wears out the rock. In like manner, whatever the struggle of individuals, the great cause will gather strength.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Life
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When one subtracts from life infancy (which is vegetation), sleep, eating and swilling, buttoning and unbuttoning -- how much remains of downright existence? The summer of a dormouse.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Between two worlds life hovers like a star, twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's verge.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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It is very certain that the desire of life prolongs it.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Life's enchanted cup sparkles near the brim.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Literary
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'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print. A book's a book, although there's nothing in 't.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Love
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Like the measles, love is most dangerous when it comes late in life.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Man's love is of man's life a part; it is a woman's whole existence. In her first passion, a woman loves her lover, in all the others all she loves is love.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Who loves, raves.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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The best way will be to avoid each other without appearing to do so -- or if we jostle, at any rate not to bite.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Lovers may be -- and indeed generally are -- enemies, but they never can be friends, because there must always be a spice of jealousy and a something of Self in all their speculations.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Marriage
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Though women are angels, yet wedlock's the devil.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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I have great hopes that we shall love each other all our lives as much as if we had never married at all.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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I am about to be married, and am of course in all the misery of a man in pursuit of happiness.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Constancy... that small change of love, which people exact so rigidly, receive in such counterfeit coin, and repay in baser metal.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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The fact is that my wife if she had common sense would have more power over me than any other whatsoever, for my heart always alights upon the nearest perch.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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All tragedies are finished by a death,
All comedies are ended by a marriage;
The future states of both are left to faith,
For authors fear description might disparage
The worlds to come of both. . . .
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron, Don Juan
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Mathematics
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I know that two and two make four -- and should be glad to prove it too if I could -- though I must say if by any sort of process I could convert 2 and 2 into five it would give me much greater pleasure.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Memory
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It is singular how soon we lose the impression of what ceases to be constantly before us. A year impairs, a luster obliterates. There is little distinct left without an effort of memory, then indeed the lights are rekindled for a moment --but who can be sure that the Imagination is not the torch-bearer?
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Men & Women
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What a strange thing man is; and what a stranger thing woman.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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A woman who gives any advantage to a man may expect a lover -- but will sooner or later find a tyrant.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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There 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 (George Gordon) Byron
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But as to women, who can penetrate the real sufferings of their she condition? Man's very sympathy with their estate has much of selfishness and more suspicion. Their love, their virtue, beauty, education, but form good housekeepers, to breed a nation.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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I 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 (George Gordon) Byron
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We have progressively improved into a less spiritual species of tenderness -- but the seal is not yet fixed though the wax is preparing for the impression.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Military, the
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What makes a regiment of soldiers a more noble object of view than the same mass of mob? Their arms, their dresses, their banners, and the art and artificial symmetry of their position and movements.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Money
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Alas! how deeply painful is all payment!
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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I have imbibed such a love for money that I keep some sequins in a drawer to count, and cry over them once a week.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Ready money is Aladdin's lamp.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Yes! Ready money is Aladdin's lamp.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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I am as comfortless as a pilgrim with peas in his shoes -- and as cold as Charity, Chastity or any other Virtue.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Morals
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Though sages may pour out their wisdom's treasure, there is no sterner moralist than pleasure.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Mystery
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Where there is mystery, it is generally suspected there must also be evil.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Nation, Nationality, Nationalism
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Switzerland is a curst, selfish, swinish country of brutes, placed in the most romantic region of the world.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Nature
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As long as I retain my feeling and my passion for Nature, I can partly soften or subdue my other passions and resist or endure those of others.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron, from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
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Oceans
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Roll on, deep and dark blue ocean, roll. Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain. Man marks the earth with ruin, but his control stops with the shore.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Opinion
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Opinions are made to be changed --or how is truth to be got at?
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Pain
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The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Parties
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Like other parties of the kind, it was first silent, then talky, then argumentative, then disputatious, then unintelligible, then altogether, then inarticulate, and then drunk. When we had reached the last step of this glorious ladder, it was difficult to get down again without stumbling.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Passion
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There is no such thing as a life of passion any more than a continuous earthquake, or an eternal fever. Besides, who would ever shave themselves in such a state?
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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In her first passion, a woman loves her lover, in all the others all she loves is love.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Past, the
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From the wreck of the past, which hath perish
Written to his half sister following his exile on grounds of incest with her.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron, To Augusta
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Patriotism
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Though I love my country, I do not love my countrymen.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Philosophy
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Pythagoras, 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 (George Gordon) Byron
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Pleasure
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There is no sterner moralist than pleasure.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Whenever I meet with anything agreeable in this world it surprises me so much -- and pleases me so much (when my passions are not interested in one way or the other) that I go on wondering for a week to come.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Poetry
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As to Don Juan, confess that it is the sublime of that there sort of writing; it may be bawdy, but is it not good English? It may be profligate, but is it not life, is it not the thing? Could any man have written it who has not lived in the world? and tooled in a post-chaise? in a hackney coach? in a Gondola? against a wall? in a court carriage? in a vis a vis? on a table? and under it?
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Poetry should only occupy the idle.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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I by no means rank poetry high in the scale of intelligence --this may look like affectation but it is my real opinion. It is the lava of the imagination whose eruption prevents an earthquake.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Politics
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I have simplified my politics into an utter detestation of all existing governments; and, as it is the shortest and most agreeable and summary feeling imaginable, the first moment of an universal republic would convert me into an advocate for single and uncontradicted despotism. The fact is, riches are power, and poverty is slavery all over the earth, and one sort of establishment is no better, nor worse, for a people than another.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Punishment
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I should be very willing to redress men wrongs, and rather check than punish crimes, had not Cervantes, in that all too true tale of Quixote, shown how all such efforts fail.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Purpose
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I am sure of nothing so little as my own intentions.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Reading
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The reading or non-reading a book will never keep down a single petticoat.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Reality
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This sort of adoration of the real is but a heightening of the beau ideal.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Relationships
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My attachment has neither the blindness of the beginning, nor the microscopic accuracy of the close of such liaisons.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Her great merit is finding out mine -- there is nothing so amiable as discernment.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Religion
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I am always most religious upon a sunshiny day...
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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I like his holiness very much, particularly since an order, which I understand he has lately given, that no more miracles shall be performed.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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It is by far the most elegant worship, hardly excepting the Greek mythology. What with incense, pictures, statues, altars, shrines, relics, and the real presence, confession, absolution, -- there is something sensible to grasp at. Besides, it leaves no possibility of doubt; for those who swallow their Deity, really and truly, in transubstantiation, can hardly find any thing else otherwise than easy of digestion.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Remembrance
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The good old times -- all times when old are good.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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When age chills the blood, when our pleasures are past--
For years fleet away with the wings of the dove--
The dearest remembrance will still be the last,
Our sweetest memorial the first kiss of love.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Revolution
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The dead have been awakened -- shall I sleep? The world's at war with tyrants -- shall I crouch? the harvest's ripe -- and shall I pause to reap? I slumber not; the thorn is in my couch; Each day a trumpet soundeth in mine ear, its echo in my heart.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Sadness
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The busy have no time for tears.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Science
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Science is but the exchange of ignorance for that which is another kind of ignorance.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Seduction
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I should like to know who has been carried off, except poor dear me -- I have been more ravished myself than anybody since the Trojan war.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Self-love
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Self-love for ever creeps out, like a snake, to sting anything which happens to stumble upon it.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Selfishness
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We are all selfish and I no more trust myself than others with a good motive.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Sex
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It is true from early habit, one must make love mechanically as one swims; I was once very fond of both, but now as I never swim unless I tumble into the water, I don't make love till almost obliged.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Shame
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He scratched his ear, the infallible resource to which embarrassed people have recourse.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Shopping
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A bargain is in its very essence a hostile transaction do not all men try to abate the price of all they buy? I contend that a bargain even between brethren is a declaration of war.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Sincerity
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Sincerity may be humble, but she cannot be servile.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Sleep
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Sleep hath its own world, and a wide realm of wild reality. And dreams in their development have breath, and tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Smile
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Smiles form the channel of a future tear.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Snow
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And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron, Hebrew Melodies, `The Destruction of Sennacherib'
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Society
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Society is now one polished horde, formed of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Solitude
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In solitude, where we are least alone.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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To fly from, need not be to hate, makind:
All are not fit with them to stir and toil,
Nor is it discontent to keep the mind
Deep in its fountain.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, 1818
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Success & Failure
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They never fail who die in a great cause.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Suicide
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Oh! snatched away in beauty's bloom,
On thee shall press no ponderous tomb;
But on thy turf shall roses rear
Their leaves, the earliest of the year.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Thought
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For in itself a thought, a slumbering thought, is capable of years, and curdles a long life into one hour.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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The power of thought, the magic of the mind.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Time
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Oh Time! the beautifier of the dead, adorer of the ruin, comforter and only healer when the heart hath bled... Time, the avenger!
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Travel
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I swims in the Tagus all across at once, and I rides on an ass or a mule, and swears Portuguese, and have got a diarrhea and bites from the mosquitoes. But what of that? Comfort must not be expected by folks that go a pleasuring.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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I am so convinced of the advantages of looking at mankind instead of reading about them, and of the bitter effects of staying at home with all the narrow prejudices of an Islander, that I think there should be a law amongst us to set our young men abroad for a term among the few allies our wars have left us.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Truth
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Truth is always strange, stranger than fiction.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Tyranny
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If we must have a tyrant, let him at least be a gentleman who has been bred to the business, and let us fall by the axe and not by the butcher's cleaver.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Are we aware of our obligations to a mob? It is the mob that labor in your fields and serve in your houses -- that man your navy, and recruit your army -- that have enabled you to defy the world, and can also defy you when neglect and calamity have driven them to despair. You may call the people a mob; but do not forget that a mob too often speaks the sentiments of the people.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Universe, The
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Why I came here, I know not; where I shall go it is useless to inquire -- in the midst of myriads of the living and the dead worlds, stars, systems, infinity, why should I be anxious about an atom?
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Virtue
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Every day confirms my opinion on the superiority of a vicious life -- and if Virtue is not its own reward I don't know any other stipend annexed to it.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Women
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Women hate everything which strips off the tinsel of sentiment, and they are right, or it would rob them of their weapons.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Words
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Words are things, and a small drop of ink, falling like dew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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World
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What 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 (George Gordon) Byron
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Youth
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So much alarmed that she is quite alarming, All Giggle, Blush, half Pertness, and half Pout.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
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Books by and about Lord (George Gordon) Byron
