"Self-love for ever creeps out, like a snake, to sting anything which happens to stumble upon it."

Byron, Lord on love   

"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."

Byron, Lord on sex   

"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."

Byron, Lord on wives   

"Truth is always strange, stranger than fiction."

Byron, Lord on truth   

"Oh Time! the beautifier of the dead, adorer of the ruin, comforter and only healer when the heart hath bled... Time, the avenger!"

Byron, Lord on time   

"For in itself a thought, a slumbering thought, is capable of years, and curdles a long life into one hour."

Byron, Lord on thoughts and thinking   

"'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print; A book's a book, although there's nothing in it."

Byron, Lord on books - reading   

"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."

Byron, Lord on birthdays
3 fans of this quote   

"All are inclined to believe what they covet, from a lottery-ticket up to a passport to Paradise."

Byron, Lord on belief   

"Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life."

Byron, Lord on sorrow
8 fans of this quote   

"In solitude, where we are least alone."

Byron, Lord on solitude
8 fans of this quote   

"The busy have no time for tears."

Byron, Lord on sorrow
7 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"Smiles form the channel of a future tear."

Byron, Lord on smile   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"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."

Byron, Lord on sleep
3 fans of this quote   

"If I am fool, it is, at least, a doubting one; and I envy no one the certainty of his self-approved wisdom."

Byron, Lord on skepticism   

"Sincerity may be humble, but she cannot be servile."

Byron, Lord on sincerity
3 fans of this quote   

"Though sages may pour out their wisdom's treasure, there is no sterner moralist than pleasure."

Byron, Lord on morality
3 fans of this quote   

"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."

Byron, Lord on women
4 fans of this quote   

"With just enough of learning to misquote."

Byron, Lord on learning   

"When we think we lead we are most led."

Byron, Lord on leadership
6 fans of this quote   

"There is no instinct like that of the heart."

Byron, Lord on intuition
8 fans of this quote   

"I am sure of nothing so little as my own intentions."

Byron, Lord on intentions   

"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."

Byron, Lord on immortality   

"For pleasures past I do not grieve, nor perils gathering near; My greatest grief is that I leave nothing that claims a tear."

Byron, Lord on inheritance
3 fans of this quote   

"Keep thy smooth words and juggling homilies for those who know thee not."

Byron, Lord on hypocrisy
5 fans of this quote   

"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."

Byron, Lord on hope
12 fans of this quote   

"Hatred is the madness of the heart."

Byron, Lord on hatred
8 fans of this quote   

"First, whenever a man talks loudly against religion, always suspect that it is not his reason, but his passions, which have got the better of his creed. A bad life and a good belief are disagreeable and troublesome neighbors, and where they separate, depend upon it, 'Tis for no other cause but quietness sake."

Sterne, Laurence on atheism   

"Do not assume that she who seeks to comfort you now, lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. Her life may also have much sadness and difficulty, that remains far beyond yours. Were it otherwise, she would never have been able to find these words."

Rilke, Rainer Maria on comfort
16 fans of this quote   

"Literature transforms and intensifies ordinary language, deviates systematically from everyday speech. If you approach me at a bus stop and murmur Thou still unravished bride of quietness, then I am instantly aware that I am in the presence of the literary."

Eagleton, Terry on literature   

"Life is too precious to be spent in this weaving and unweaving of false impressions, and it is better to live quietly under some degree of misrepresentation than to attempt to remove it by the uncertain process of letter-writing."

Eliot, George on letters
3 fans of this quote   

"The world is never quiet, even its silence eternally resounds with the same notes, in vibrations which escape our ears. As for those that we perceive, they carry sounds to us, occasionally a chord, never a melody."

Camus, Albert on noise   

"Letter writing is the only device for combining solitude with good company."

Byron, Lord on letters
3 fans of this quote   

"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."

Byron, Lord on liberty   

"A woman who gives any advantage to a man may expect a lover -- but will sooner or later find a tyrant."

Byron, Lord on women
6 fans of this quote   

"I have great hopes that we shall love each other all our lives as much as if we had never married at all."

Byron, Lord on marriage   

"All tragedies are finished by a death, all comedies by a marriage."

Byron, Lord on marriage
6 fans of this quote   

"Though women are angels, yet wedlock's the devil."

Byron, Lord on marriage   

"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."

Byron, Lord on love
4 fans of this quote   

"The best way will be to avoid each other without appearing to do so -- or if we jostle, at any rate not to bite."

Byron, Lord on love
3 fans of this quote