Walter Savage Landor Quotes

The spirit of Greece, passing through and ascending above the world, hath so animated universal nature, that the very rocks and woods, the very torrents and wilds burst forth with it.

No ashes are lighter than those of incense, and few things burn out sooner.

There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.

Truth, like the juice of the poppy, in small quantities, calms men; in larger, heats and irritates them, and is attended by fatal consequences in excess.

We are no longer happy so soon as we wish to be happier.

A man's vanity tells him what is honor, a man's conscience what is justice.

Truth is a point, the subtlest and finest; harder than adamant; never to be broken, worn away, or blunted. Its only bad quality is, that it is sure to hurt those who touch it; and likely to draw blood, perhaps the life blood, of those who press earnestly upon it.

My thoughts are my company; I can bring them together, select them, detain them, dismiss them.

Friendship is a vase, which, when it is flawed by heat, or violence, or accident, may as well be broken at once; it can never be trusted after.

The Siren waits thee, singing song for song.

A good cook is the peculiar gift of the gods. He must be a perfect creature from the brain to the palate, from the palate to the finger's end.

The flame of anger, bright and brief, sharpens the barb of love.

It is easy to look down on others; to look down on ourselves is the difficulty.

Great men always pay deference to greater.

Heat and animosity, contest and conflict, may sharpen the wits, although they rarely do; they never strengthen the understanding, clear the perspicacity, guide the judgment, or improve the heart.

Music is God's gift to man, the only art of Heaven given to earth, the only art of earth we take to Heaven.

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife. Nature I loved and, next to Nature, Art: I warm'd both hands before the fire of life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart.

We fancy we suffer from ingratitude, while in reality we suffer from self-love.

Religion is the eldest sister of philosophy: on whatever subjects they may differ, it is unbecoming in either to quarrel, and most so about their inheritance.

Study is the bane of childhood, the oil of youth, the indulgence of adulthood, and a restorative in old age.

Goodness does not more certainly make men happy than happiness makes them good.

The habit of pleasing by flattery makes a language soft; the fear of offending by truth makes it circuitous and conventional.

It is delightful to kiss the eyelashes of the beloved--is it not? But never so delightful as when fresh tears are on them.

Despotism sits nowhere so secure as under the effigy and ensigns of freedom.

We cannot be contented because we are happy, and we cannot be happy because we are contented.

Men, like nails, lose their usefulness when they lose their direction and begin to bend.

What is reading but silent conversation?

Cruelty is the highest pleasure to the cruel man; it is his love.

The religion of Christ is peace and good-will,--the religion of Christendom is war and ill-will.

Nothing is pleasanter to me than exploring in a library.

We care not how many see us in choler, when we rave and bluster, and make as much noise and bustle as we can; but if the kindest and most generous affection comes across us, we suppress every sign of it, and hide ourselves in nooks and covert.

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

The wise become as the unwise in the enchanted chambers of Power, whose lamps make every face the same colour.

An ingenious mind feels in unmerited praise the bitterest reproof.

When a cat flatters ... he is not insincere: you may safely take it for real kindness.

It appears to be among the laws of nature, that the mighty of intellect should be pursued and carped by the little, as the solitary flight of one great bird is followed by the twittering petulance of many smaller.

Cats like men are flatterers.

No good writer was ever long neglected; no great man overlooked by men equally great. Impatience is a proof of inferior strength, and a destroyer of what little there may be.

Delay in justice is injustice.

In argument, truth always prevails finally; in politics, falsehood always.

I strove with none; for none was worth my strife.

He who brings ridicule to bear against truth finds in his hand a blade without a hilt.

When the mind loses its feeling for elegance, it grows corrupt and groveling, and seeks in the crowd what ought to be found at home.

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.

Political men, like goats, usually thrive best among inequalities.

The most pernicious of absurdities is that weak, blind, stupid faith is better than the constant practice of every human virtue.

As the pearl ripens in the obscurity of its shell, so ripens in the tomb all the fame that is truly precious.

Children are what the mothers are.

An ingenuous mind feels in unmerited praise the bitterest reproof. If you reject it you are unhappy, if you accept it you are undone.

Cruelty, if we consider it as a crime, is the greatest of all; if we consider it as a madness, we are equally justifiable in applying to it the readiest and the surest means of oppression.