Lord Byron

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 Byron

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

— Lord Byron

There is no instinct like that of the heart.

— Lord Byron

This is the patent age of new inventions for killing bodies, and for saving souls. All propagated with the best intentions.

— Lord Byron

Who surpasses or subdues mankind, must look down on the hate of those below.

— Lord Byron

Nothing can confound a wise man more than laughter from a dunce.

— Lord Byron

When we think we lead we are most led.

— Lord Byron

With just enough of learning to misquote.

— Lord Byron

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

— Lord Byron

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 Byron

And, after all, what is a lie? 'Tis but the truth in masquerade.

— Lord Byron

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 Byron

Between two worlds life hovers like a star, twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's verge.

— Lord Byron

It is very certain that the desire of life prolongs it.

— Lord Byron

Life's enchanted cup sparkles near the brim.

— Lord Byron

Like the measles, love is most dangerous when it comes late in life.

— Lord Byron

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 Byron

Who loves, raves.

— Lord Byron

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 Byron

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 Byron

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

— Lord Byron

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

— Lord Byron

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

— Lord Byron

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 Byron

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 Byron

What a strange thing man is; and what a stranger thing woman.

— Lord Byron

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

— Lord Byron

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 Byron

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 Byron

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 Byron

I am as comfortless as a pilgrim with peas in his shoes -- and as cold as Charity, Chastity or any other Virtue.

— Lord Byron

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 Byron

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 Byron

Ready money is Aladdin's lamp.

— Lord Byron

Yes! Ready money is Aladdin's lamp.

— Lord Byron

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

— Lord Byron

We are all selfish and I no more trust myself than others with a good motive.

— Lord Byron

Where there is mystery, it is generally suspected there must also be evil.

— Lord Byron

Switzerland is a curst, selfish, swinish country of brutes, placed in the most romantic region of the world.

— Lord Byron

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 Byron

The good old times -- all times when old are good.

— Lord Byron

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 Byron

Opinions are made to be changed --or how is truth to be got at?

— Lord Byron

The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain.

— Lord Byron

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 Byron

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 Byron

In her first passion, a woman loves her lover, in all the others all she loves is love.

— Lord Byron

Though I love my country, I do not love my countrymen.

— Lord Byron

Alas! how deeply painful is all payment!

— Lord Byron

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 Byron

There is no sterner moralist than pleasure.

— Lord Byron

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 Byron

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 Byron

Poetry should only occupy the idle.

— Lord Byron

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 Byron

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 Byron

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 Byron

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 Byron

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 Byron

This sort of adoration of the real is but a heightening of the beau ideal.

— Lord Byron

My attachment has neither the blindness of the beginning, nor the microscopic accuracy of the close of such liaisons.

— Lord Byron

I am always most religious upon a sunshiny day...

— Lord Byron

The beginning of atonement is the sense of its necessity.

— Lord Byron

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 Byron

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 Byron

They never fail who die in a great cause.

— Lord Byron

Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.

— Lord Byron

Science is but the exchange of ignorance for that which is another kind of ignorance.

— Lord Byron

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 Byron

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

— Lord Byron

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 Byron

Sincerity may be humble, but she cannot be servile.

— Lord Byron

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

— Lord Byron

There is something pagan in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything.

— Lord Byron

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 Byron

Smiles form the channel of a future tear.

— Lord Byron

I only go out to get me a fresh appetite for being alone.

— Lord Byron

Society is now one polished horde, formed of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored.

— Lord Byron

In solitude, where we are least alone.

— Lord Byron

The busy have no time for tears.

— Lord Byron

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

— Lord Byron

The Cardinal is at his wit's end -- it is true that he had not far to go.

— Lord Byron

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

— Lord Byron

The power of thought, the magic of the mind.

— Lord Byron

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

— Lord Byron

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 Byron

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 Byron

Truth is always strange, stranger than fiction.

— Lord Byron

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 Byron

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 Byron

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 Byron

Women hate everything which strips off the tinsel of sentiment, and they are right, or it would rob them of their weapons.

— Lord Byron

But words are things, and a small drop of ink, falling like dew, upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.

— Lord Byron

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 Byron

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 Byron

To withdraw myself from myself has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive in scribbling at all.

— Lord Byron

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 Byron

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 Byron

Oh who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried

— Lord Byron