English writer and poet (1775-1864)
Not dancing well, I never danced at all--and how grievously has my heart ached when others where in the full enjoyment of that conversation which I had no right even to partake.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
The Letters of Walter Savage Landor to Marguerite, Countess of Blessington
Piety--warm, soft, and passive as the ether round the throne of Grace--is made callous and inactive by kneeling too much.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
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"
I know not whether our names will be immortal; I am sure our friendship will.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Imaginary Conversations
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.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Imaginary Conversations
Sculpture and painting are moments of life; poetry is life itself.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Pericles and Aspasia
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.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Pericles and Aspasia
Every witticism is an inexact thought; that which is perfectly true is imperfectly witty.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Imaginary Conversations of Greeks and Romans
Principles do not much influence the unprincipled, nor mainly the principled.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen
Gambling is the origin of more extensive misery than all other crimes put together; and the mischief falls principally on the unoffending and helpless; it leads, by insensible degrees, a greater number of wretches to the gallows than the higher atrocities from which that terminus is seen more plainly.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Imaginary Conversations
Happiness, like air and water, the other two great requisites of life, is composite. One kind of it suits one man, another kind another. The elevated mind takes in and breathes out again that which would be uncongenial to the baser; and the baser draws life and enjoyment from that which would be putridity to the loftier.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Imaginary Conversations
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.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
The Pentameron: Citation and Examination of William Shakespeare
I am grieved at your sorrow, although it will hereafter be a source of joy unto you. The purest water runs from the hardest rock.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Imaginary Conversations
There is only one word of tenderness we could say, which we have not said oftentimes before ; and there is no consolation in it. The happy never say, and never hear said, farewell.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Pericles and Aspasia
Toleration is in itself the essence of Christianity, and the very point which the founder of it most peculiarly enjoined.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Dialogues of Sovereigns and Statesmen
Friendship is a vase, which, when it is flawed by heat, or violence, or accident, may as well be broken at once; it can never be trusted after.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
The Book of Friendship
Harmonious words render ordinary ideas acceptable; less ordinary, pleasant; novel and ingenious ones, delightful.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Aphorisms
Many laws as certainly make bad men, as bad men make many laws.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Imaginary Conversations
We talk on principle, but we act on interest.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen
A man's vanity tells him what is honor, a man's conscience what is justice.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Imaginary Conversations