583 quotes
You will hear every day the maxims of a low prudence.
Literary Ethics (1838)
I find the Englishman to be him of all men who stands firmest in his shoes. They have in themselves what they value in their horses, — mettle and bottom.
English Traits (1856)
I do not see how a barbarous community and a civilized community can constitute a state. I think we must get rid of slavery or we must get rid of freedom.
Truth also has its roof, and bed, and board.
Literary Ethics (1838)
Friendship should be surrounded with ceremonies and respects, and not crushed into corners. Friendship requires more time than poor, busy men can usually command.
The soul comes from without into the human body, as into a temporary abode, and it goes out of it anew... it passes into other habitations, for the soul is immortal.
Some men's words I remember so well that I must often use them to express my thought. Yes, because I perceive that we have heard the same truth, but they have heard it better.
Lectures and Biographical Sketches (1883)
Genius borrows nobly. When Shakespeare is charged with debts to his authors, Landor replies: "Yet he was more original than his originals. He breathed upon dead bodies and brought them into life."
Letters and Social Aims (1876)
It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion. It is easy in solitude to live after our own. But the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his own thought, because it is his.
But all sorts of things and weather
Must be taken in together
To make up a year,
And a sphere.
Poems (1847)
The first farmer was the first man, and all historic nobility rests on possession and use of land.
Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances...Strong men believe in cause and effect.
Seeing only what is fair,
Sipping only what is sweet,
Thou dost mock at fate and care.
Poems (1847)
Wilt thou seal up the avenues of ill?
Pay every debt as if God wrote the bill.
May-Day and Other Pieces (1867)
Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous.
Nature (1836)
Solvency is maintained by means of the national debt, on the principle, "If you will not lend me the money, how can I pay you?"
English Traits (1856)
The music that can deepest reach,
And cure all ill, is cordial speech.
May-Day and Other Pieces (1867)
A day for toil, an hour for sport,
But for a friend is life too short.
Go out of the house to see the moon, and 'tis mere tinsel: it will not please as when its light shines upon your necessary journey.
Nature (1836)