Walter Savage Landor
33 quotes
Biography
Walter Savage Landor was an English writer, poet, and activist. His best known works were the prose Imaginary Conversations, and the poem "Rose Aylmer," but the critical acclaim he received from contemporary poets and reviewers was not matched by public popularity.
"Music is God's gift to man, the only art of Heaven given to earth, the only art of earth we take to Heaven."
"What is reading but silent conversation."
"The damps of autumn sink into the leaves and prepare them for the necessity of their fall; and thus insensibly are we, as years close around us, detached from our tenacity of life by the gentle pressure of recorded sorrow."
"I am heartily glad to witness your veneration for a Book which to say nothing of its holiness or authority, contains more specimens of genius and taste than any other volume in existence."
"There are no fields of amaranth on this side of the grave: there are no voices, O Rhodopè! that are not soon mute, however tuneful: there is no name, with whatever emphasis of passionate love repeated, of which the echo is not faint at last."
"Of all failures, to fail in a witticism is the worst, and the mishap is the more calamitous in a drawn-out and detailed one."
"We must not indulge in unfavourable views of mankind, since by doing it we make bad men believe that they are no worse than others, and we teach the good that they are good in vain."
"Men, like nails, lose their usefulness when they lose their direction and begin to bend: such nails are then thrown into the dust or into the furnace."
"Little men in lofty places, who throw long shadows, because our sun is setting."
"Study is the bane of childhood, the oil of youth, the indulgence of adulthood, and a restorative in old age."
"The flame of anger, bright and brief, sharpens the barb of love."
"Everything that looks to the future elevates human nature."
"We are no longer happy so soon as we wish to be happier."
"Prose on certain occasions can bear a great deal of poetry on the other hand, poetry sinks and swoons under a moderate weight of prose."
"In argument, truth always prevails finally in politics, falsehood always."
"Even the weakest disputant is made so conceited by what he calls religion, as to think himself wiser than the wisest who think differently from him."
"Every sect is a moral check on its neighbour. Competition is as wholesome in religion as in commerce."
"No truer word, save God's, was ever spoken,Than that the largest heart is soonest broken."
"Many laws as certainly make bad men, as bad men make many laws."
"As there are some flowers which you should smell but slightly to extract all that is pleasant in them ... so there are some men with whom a slight acquaintance is quite sufficient to draw out all that is agreeable a more intimate one would be unsafe and unsatisfactory."
"Ambition has but one reward for all: A little power, a little transient fame; A grave to rest in, and a fading name!"
"There is no easy path leading out of life and few are the easy ones that lie within it."
"We cannot conquer fate and necessity yet we can yield to them in such a manner as to be greater than if we could."
"The writings of the wise are the only riches our posterity cannot squander."
"Men like snails lose their usefulness when they lose direction and begin to bend."