Walter Savage Landor Quotes
The spirit of Greece, passing through and ascending above the world, hath so animated universal nature, that the very rocks and woods, the very torrents and wilds burst forth with it.
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 excess.
My thoughts are my company; I can bring them together, select them, detain them, dismiss them.
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.
A good cook is the peculiar gift of the gods. He must be a perfect creature from the brain to the palate, from the palate to the finger's end.
It is easy to look down on others; to look down on ourselves is the difficulty.
Music is God's gift to man, the only art of Heaven given to earth, the only art of earth we take to Heaven.
Heat and animosity, contest and conflict, may sharpen the wits, although they rarely do; they never strengthen the understanding, clear the perspicacity, guide the judgment, or improve the heart.
I strove with none, for none was worth my strife. Nature I loved and, next to Nature, Art: I warm'd both hands before the fire of life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart.
We fancy we suffer from ingratitude, while in reality we suffer from self-love.
Religion is the eldest sister of philosophy: on whatever subjects they may differ, it is unbecoming in either to quarrel, and most so about their inheritance.
Study is the bane of childhood, the oil of youth, the indulgence of adulthood, and a restorative in old age.
Goodness does not more certainly make men happy than happiness makes them good.
The habit of pleasing by flattery makes a language soft; the fear of offending by truth makes it circuitous and conventional.
It is delightful to kiss the eyelashes of the beloved--is it not? But never so delightful as when fresh tears are on them.
We cannot be contented because we are happy, and we cannot be happy because we are contented.
Men, like nails, lose their usefulness when they lose their direction and begin to bend.
The religion of Christ is peace and good-will,--the religion of Christendom is war and ill-will.
When a cat flatters ... he is not insincere: you may safely take it for real kindness.
Of all failures, to fail in a witticism is the worst, and the mishap is the more calamitous in a drawn-out and detailed one
He who brings ridicule to bear against truth finds in his hand a blade without a hilt.
When the mind loses its feeling for elegance, it grows corrupt and groveling, and seeks in the crowd what ought to be found at home.
The wise become as the unwise in the enchanted chambers of Power, whose lamps make every face the same colour.
Even the weakest disputant is made so conceited by what he calls religion, as to think himself wiser than the wisest who thinks differently from him.
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.
Great men lose somewhat of their greatness by being near us; ordinary men gain much.
An ingenuous mind feels in unmerited praise the bitterest reproof. If you reject it you are unhappy, if you accept it you are undone.
The most pernicious of absurdities is that weak, blind, stupid faith is better than the constant practice of every human virtue.
Cruelty, if we consider it as a crime, is the greatest of all; if we consider it as a madness, we are equally justifiable in applying to it the readiest and the surest means of oppression.
No good writer was ever long neglected; no great man overlooked by men equally great. Impatience is a proof of inferior strength, and a destroyer of what little there may be.
A little praise is good for a shy temper; it teaches it to rely on the kindness of others.
