Lord Alfred Tennyson

So much to do, so little done, such things to be.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

I must lose myself in action, lest I wither in despair.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

So many worlds, so much to do, so little done, such things to be.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

Cast your cares on God; that anchor holds.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

What rights are those that dare not resist for them?

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

That man's the true Conservative who lops the moldered branch away.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

The jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honor feels.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

A louse in the locks of literature.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

No man ever got very high by pulling other people down. The intelligent merchant does not knock his competitors. The sensible worker does not work those who work with him. Don't knock your friends. Don't knock your enemies. Don't knock yourself.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

Authority forgets a dying king.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

God's finger touched him and he slept.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

Men may rise on stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher things.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

Her eyes are homes of silent prayers.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

Faith lives in honest doubt.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

The folly of all follies is to be love sick for a shadow.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

Forgive! How many will say, forgive, and find a sort of absolution in the sound to hate a little longer!

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

He makes no friends who never made a foe.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

There's no glory like those who save their country.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

Oh for someone with a heart, head and hand. Whatever they call them, what do I care, aristocrat, democrat, autocrat, just be it one that can rule and dare not lie.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

Better not be at all than not be noble.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

By blood a king, in heart a clown.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

We cannot be kind to each other here for even an hour. We whisper, and hint, and chuckle and grin at our brother's shame; however you take it we men are a little breed.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

I hold it true, whatever befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

Love is the only gold.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

Who is wise in love, love most, say least.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

Manners are not idle, but the fruit. Of loyal nature and of noble mind.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

The greater person is one of courtesy.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

I am a part of all that I have met.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

Man dreams of fame while woman wakes to love.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

Either sex alone is half itself.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

Oh yet we trust that somehow good will be the final goal of ill!

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

Sweet is true love that is given in vain, and sweet is death that takes away pain.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null, dead perfection; no more.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

No rock so hard but that a little wave may beat admission in a thousand years.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control; these three alone lead one to sovereign power.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

Battering the gates of heaven with the storms of prayer.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

Shape your heart to front the hour, but dream not that the hours will last.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

My strength has the strength of ten because my heart is pure.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

Sin is too stupid to see beyond itself.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

A smile abroad is often a scowl at home.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

Theirs is not to make reply: Theirs is not to reason why: Theirs is but to do and die.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

A sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier times.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

Guard your roving thoughts with a jealous care, for speech is but the dialer of thoughts, and every fool can plainly read in your words what is the hour of your thoughts.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

A day may sink or save a realm.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

Trust me not at all, or all in all.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

A truth looks freshest in the fashions of the day.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force, something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

I hold it true, whateer befall;I feel it, when I sorrow most;Tis better to have loved and lostThan never to have loved at all.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

The older order changeth, yielding place to new,And God fulfils himself in many ways,Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there raind a ghastly dewFrom the nations airy navies grappling in the central blue;Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,With the standards of the peoples plunging thro the thunder-storm;Till the war-drums throbbd, no longer, and the battle-flags were furldIn the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace;Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul,While the stars burn, the moons increase,And the great ages onward roll. Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet. Nothing comes to thee new or strange. Sleep full of rest from head to feet;Lie still, dry dust, secure of change.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

It little profits that an idle king,By this still hearth, among these barren crags,Matchd with an aged wife, I mete and doleUnequal laws unto a savage race,That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. I cannot rest from travel; I will drinkLife to the lees. All times I have enjoydGreatly, have sufferd greatly, both with thoseThat loved me, and alone; on shore, and whenThro scudding drifts the rainy HyadesVext the dim sea. I am become a name;For always roaming with a hungry heartMuch have I seen and known,cities of menAnd manners, climates, councils, governments,Myself not least, but honord of them all,And drunk delight of battle with my peers,Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. I am a part of all that I have met;Yet all experience is an arch wherethroGleams that untravelld world whose margin fadesFor ever and for ever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end,To rust unburnishd, not to shine in use!As tho to breathe were life! Life piled on lifeWere all too little, and of one to meLittle remains; but every hour is savedFrom that eternal silence, something more,A bringer of new things; and vile it wereFor some three suns to store and hoard myself,And this gray spirit yearning in desireTo follow knowledge like a sinking star,Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Tho much is taken, much abides; and thoWe are not now that strength which in old daysMoved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,One equal temper of heroic hearts,Made weak by time and fate, but strong in willTo strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson