Quotes from landor walter savage ii

Him I would call the powerful one who controls the storms of his mind.

The Siren waits thee, singing song for song.

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 its excess.

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 ; and neither fan nor burned feather can bring her to herself again.

Wise or unwise, who doubts for a moment that contentment is the cause of happiness? Yet the inverse is true: we are contented because we are happy, and not happy because we are contented. Well-regulated minds may be satisfied with a small portion of happiness; none can be happy with a small portion of content.

It is a dire calamity to have a slave; it is an expiable curse to be one.

At every step we take to gain the approbation of the wise, we lose something in the estimation of the vulgar.

Other offences, even the greatest, are the violation of one law: despotism is the violation of all.

I know not whether our names will be immortal; I am sure our friendship will.

Let a gentleman be known to have been cheated of twenty pounds, and it costs him forty a-year for the remainder of his life.

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.

Sculpture and painting are moments of life; poetry is life itself.

The eyes of critics, whether in commending or carping, are both on one side, like a turbot's.

The very beautiful rarely love at all; those precious images are placed above the reach of the passions: Time alone is permitted to efface them.

I delight in the diffusion of learning; yet, I must confess it, I am most gratified and transported at finding a large quantity of it in one place; just as I would rather have a solid pat of butter at breakfast, than a splash of grease upon the table-cloth that covers half of it.

The compliments of a king are of themselves sufficient to pervert your intellect.

Why cannot we be delighted with an author, and even feel a predilection for him, without a dislike of others? An admiration of Catullus or Virgil, of Tibullus or Ovid, is never to be heightened by a discharge of bile on Horace.

I warmed both hands before the fire of Life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart.