English writer and poet (1775-1864)
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.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Imaginary Conversations
The Siren waits thee, singing song for song.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
"To Robert Browning"
Him I would call the powerful one who controls the storms of his mind.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
"Diogenes and Plato", Imaginary Conversations of Greeks and Romans
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.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Imaginary Conversations
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.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Imaginary Conversations
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.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Imaginary Conversations
It is a dire calamity to have a slave; it is an expiable curse to be one.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Selections from the Writings of Walter Savage Landor
The flame of anger, bright and brief,
Sharpens the barb of Love.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Tell Me Not Things Past all Belief
Nothing is pleasanter to me than exploring in a library.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Pericles and Aspasia
At every step we take to gain the approbation of the wise, we lose something in the estimation of the vulgar.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
"Barrow and Newton", Dialogues of Literary Men
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.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
"Barrow and Newton", Dialogues of Literary Men
To my ninth decade I have totter'd on,
And no soft arm bends now my steps to steady;
She, who once led me where she would, is gone,
So when he calls me, Death shall find me ready.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
"On His Eightieth Birthday"
I warmed both hands before the fire of Life;
It sinks, and I am ready to depart.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
I Strove with None, for None was Worth My Strife
It often comes into my head
That we may dream when we are dead,
But I am far from sure we do.
O that it were so! then my rest
Would be indeed among the blest;
I should for ever dream of you.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
"To Ianthe"
My thoughts are my company; I can bring them together, select them, detain them, dismiss them.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Imaginary Conversations
The compliments of a king are of themselves sufficient to pervert your intellect.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Imaginary Conversations
The eyes of critics, whether in commending or carping, are both on one side, like a turbot's.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
The Pentameron: Citation and Examination of William Shakespeare
Other offences, even the greatest, are the violation of one law: despotism is the violation of all.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Second Series of Imaginary Conversations
Stand close around, ye Stygian set,
With Dirce in one boat convey'd,
Or Charon, seeing, may forget
That he is old, and she a shade.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
"On Dirce"
As we sometimes find one thing while we are looking for another, so, if truth escaped me, happiness and contentment fell in my way.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Pericles and Aspasia