George Gordon Byron Quotes

And when the tumult dwindled to a calm, I left him practising the hundredth psalm.

The angels all were 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.

Eat, drink, and love; the rest’s not worth a fillip.

Gaunt Famine never shall approach the throne. Though Ireland starve, great George weighs twenty stone.

But after being fired at once or twice, The ear becomes more Irish, and less nice.

Think you, if Laura had been Petrach’s wife, He would have written sonnets all his life?

So for a good old-gentlemanly vice, I think I must take up with avarice.

A little still she strove, and much repented, And whispering ‘I will ne’er consent’—consented.

Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded That all the Apostles would have done as they did.

What men call gallantry, and gods adultery, Is much more common where the climate’s sultry.

Married, charming, chaste, and twenty-three.

But—Oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual, Inform us truly, have they not hen-pecked you all?.

And Coleridge, too, has lately taken wing, But, like a hawk encumbered with his hood, Explaining metaphysics to the nation—I wished he would explain his explanation.

Old man! ’tis not so difficult to die.

Our cloudy climate, and our chilly women.

His heart was one of those which most enamour us, Wax to receive, and marble to retain.

In short he was a perfect cavaliero, And to his very valet seemed a hero.

How beautiful is all this visible world! How glorious in its action and itself ! But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we, Half dust, half deity, alike unfit To sink or soar, with our mixed essence make A conflict of its elements, and breathe The breath of degradation and of pride.

Sorrow is knowledge: they who know the most Must mourn the deepest o’er the fatal truth, The tree of knowledge is not that of Life.