110 quotes
Childhood and genius have the same master-organ in common—inquisitiveness. Let childhood have its way, and as it began where genius begins, it may find what genius finds.
The Caxtons (1849)
It is strange so great a statesman should
Be so sublime a poet.
Richelieu (1839)
The brilliant chief, irregularly great,
Frank, haughty, rash,— the Rupert of debate!
The New Timon (1846)
I come not here to learn the horn-book of war…
Harold (1848)
He is certainly a man who bathes and "lives cleanly," (two especial charges preferred against him by Messrs. the Great Unwashed).
Paul Clifford (1830)
If I publish this poem for you, speaking as a trader, I shall be a considerable loser. Did I publish all I admire, out of sympathy with the author, I should be a ruined man.
When stars are in the quiet skies,
Then most I pine for thee;
Bend on me, then, thy tender eyes,
As stars look on the sea!
Ernest Maltravers (1837)
Hark, the world so loud,
And they, the movers of the world, so still!
Better that the light cloud should fade away into heaven with the morning breath, than travail through the weary day to gather in darkness, and in storm.
He who has loved often has loved never.
The Last Days of Pompeii (1834)
The learned compute that seven hundred and seven millions of millions of vibrations have penetrated the eye before the eye can distinguish the tints of a violet.
What Will He Do With It? (1858)
You speak
As one who fed on poetry.
Richelieu (1839)
Remorse is the echo of a lost virtue.
Zanoni (1842)
Alone!—that worn-out word,
So idly spoken, and so coldly heard;
Yet all that poets sing, and grief hath known,
Of hope laid waste, knells in that word ALONE!
The New Timon (1846)
Every street has two sides, the shady side and the sunny. When two men shake hands and part, mark which of the two takes the sunny side; he will be the younger man of the two.
What Will He Do With It? (1858)
Be prepared for either wisdom through joy, or wisdom through grief. Enough that, looking only through the mechanism by which this mortal world is impelled and improved, you know that cruelty is impossible to wisdom.
A Strange Story (1850)
Our glories float between the earth and heaven
Like clouds which seem pavilions of the sun,
And are the playthings of the casual wind.
Richelieu (1839)
Three things are ever silent—Thought, Destiny, and the Grave.
There are times when the mirth of others only saddens us, especially the mirth of children with high spirits, that jar on our own quiet mood.
Kenelm Chillingly (1873)
There is no Past, so long as Books shall live!