655 quotes
"There is a steep and lofty wall,
Where my warders trembling stand,
He who at speed shall ride round its height,
For him shall be my hand."
The Troubadour (1825)
Philosophy, like charity, begins at home ; but also, like charity, I should wish it to extend, and become the more beneficial the more it expands.
For human tears are lava-drops,
That scorch and wither as they flow;
Then let them flow for those who live,
And not for those who sleep below.
The Vow of the Peacock (1835)
Like a human thought in quest
Of a future hour.
There is nothing in nature so impracticable as the obstinacy of your true husband; it is the insurmountable obstacle—the Alps no female vinegar can melt.
Life is but the spirit's prison,
Where its wings are furl'd,
Stretching to their flight in vain, —
Seeking that eternal home
Which is in a world to come.
Wisdom is only knowledge well applied.
Romance and Reality (1831)
You resemble those political economists who, if they see a paragraph in the paper one day rejoicing over the country's prosperity, examine its columns to see what new tax is to be suggested.
Romance and Reality (1831)
Spirit of the midnight dream,
What is now upon thy wing ?
Earth sleeps in the moonlight beam ;
O'er that sleep what wilt thou fling ?
Those cheerful bells, how can they bid
A welcome to the new-born Year?
I think on what the past has been ;
I cannot hope—I only fear.
I envy thee, thou careless wind !
How light, how wild thy wandering :
Thou hast no earthly chain, to bind
One fetter on thy airy wing.
Who seeing the fair ship
That swept through the bright waves.
Would dream that tyrants trod her deck,
And that her freight was slaves !
All over the world with thee, my love !
All over the world with thee ;
I care not what sky may low'r above,
Or how dark our path may be.
O ! the heart has all too many tears ;
But none are like those that wait
On the blighted love, the loneliness
Of the young orphan's fate.
The Golden Violet (1827)
I believe the love of flowers to be as inherent in the disposition as any other inclination.
My heart is like the failing hearth
Now by my side,
One by one its bursts of flame
Have burnt and died.
The Golden Violet (1827)
Now, bitter, but useful, mortification is the steppingstone to knowledge, even in a child.
And the hall is lone, and the hall is drear,
For the smiling of woman shineth not here.
The Improvisatrice (1824)
Let music make less terrible
The silence of the dead;
I care not, so my spirit last
Long after life has fled.
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)
The startled terror of remorse that dares not think of what it fears, is as inconsistent as all other human feelings.