Lord Byron quotes
Lord Byron (1788–1824): English Romantic poet and lyricist. The library holds 487 quotes by Lord Byron, drawn from Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Don Juan, Childe Harold and other works. The 60 below are the most quoted; search the library in the maker for the rest.
Often about: life, love, nature, time, death, faith
The best-known Lord Byron quotes
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A thousand years scarce serve to form a state: An hour may lay it in the dust.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto ii. Stanza 84 -
In hope to merit heaven by making earth a hell.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto i. Stanza 20 -
Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been,—A sound which makes us linger; yet—farewell!
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto iv. Stanza 186 -
Such partings break the heart they fondly hope to heal.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto i. Stanza 10 -
War, war is still the cry,—“war even to the knife!”
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto i. Stanza 86 -
He who ascends to mountain-tops shall find The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow; He who surpasses or subdues mankind Must look down on the hate of those below.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto iii. Stanza 45 -
Who surpasses or subdues mankind Must look down on the hate of those below.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage -
The thorns which I have reap’d are of the tree I planted; they have torn me, and I bleed. I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto iv. Stanza 10 -
None are so desolate but something dear, Dearer than self, possesses or possess’d A thought, and claims the homage of a tear.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto ii. Stanza 24 -
But ’midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men, To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess, And roam along, the world’s tired denizen, With none who bless us, none whom we can bless.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto ii. Stanza 26 -
I have not loved the world, nor the world me.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto iii. Stanza 113 -
Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto iii. Stanza 107 -
Where’er we tread, ’tis haunted, holy ground.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto ii. Stanza 88 -
Ah, happy years! once more who would not be a boy?
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto ii. Stanza 23 -
The hell of waters! where they howl and hiss, And boil in endless torture.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto iv. Stanza 69 -
I live not in myself, but I become Portion of that around me; and to me High mountains are a feeling, but the hum Of human cities torture.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto iii. Stanza 72 -
Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare, And Mammon wins his way where seraphs might despair.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto i. Stanza 9 -
This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing To waft me from distraction.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto iii. Stanza 85 -
Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded That all the Apostles would have done as they did.
Don Juan, Canto i. Stanza 83 -
I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs, A palace and a prison on each hand.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto iv. Stanza 1 -
The drying up a single tear has more Of honest fame than shedding seas of gore.
Don Juan, Canto viii. Stanza 3 -
What is the worst of woes that wait on age? What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow? To view each loved one blotted from life’s page, And be alone on earth as I am now.
Childe Harold, Canto II -
Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth! Immortal, though no more! though fallen, great!
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto ii. Stanza 73 -
All is concentr’d in a life intense, Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, But hath a part of being.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto iii. Stanza 89 -
Hereditary bondsmen! know ye not, Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow?
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto ii. Stanza 76 -
O Christ! it is a goodly sight to see What Heaven hath done for this delicious land.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto i. Stanza 15 -
Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying, Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto iv. Stanza 98 -
The castled crag of Drachenfels Frowns o’er the wide and winding Rhine.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto iii. Stanza 55 -
There’s not a joy the world can give like that it takes away.
Stanzas for Music -
While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall; And when Rome falls—the world.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto iv. Stanza 145 -
History, with all her volumes vast, Hath but one page.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto iv. Stanza 108 -
The dome of thought, the palace of the soul.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto ii. Stanza 6 -
A schoolboy’s tale, the wonder of an hour!
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto ii. Stanza 2 -
Adieu! adieu! my native shore Fades o’er the waters blue.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto i. Stanza 13 -
But there are wanderers o’er Eternity Whose bark drives on and on, and anchor’d ne’er shall be.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto iii. Stanza 70 -
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; Man marks the earth with ruin,—his control Stops with the shore.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto iv. Stanza 179 -
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow,—Such as creation’s dawn beheld, thou rollest now.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto iv. Stanza 182 -
Italia! O Italia! thou who hast The fatal gift of beauty.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto iv. Stanza 42 -
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods; There is a rapture on the lonely shore; There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not man the less, but Nature more.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto iv. Stanza 178 -
Italia! O Italia! thou who hast The fatal gift of beauty, which became A funeral dower of present woes and past, On thy sweet brow is sorrow ploughed by shame, And annals graved in characters of flame.
Childe Harold, Canto IV -
Lord of himself,—that heritage of woe!
Lara, Canto i. Stanza 2 -
No words suffice the secret soul to show, For truth denies all eloquence to woe.
The Corsair, Canto iii. Stanza 22 -
The keenest pangs the wretched find Are rapture to the dreary void, The leafless desert of the mind, The waste of feelings unemployed.
The Giaour, Line 957 -
When Bishop Berkeley said “there was no matter,” And proved it,—’t was no matter what he said.
Don Juan, Canto xi. Stanza 1 -
“Whom the gods love die young,” was said of yore.
Don Juan, Canto iv. Stanza 12 -
The cold in clime are cold in blood, Their love can scarce deserve the name.
The Giaour, Line 1099 -
But words are things, and a small drop of ink, Falling like dew upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.
Don Juan, Canto iii. Stanza 88 -
’Tis pleasant, sure, to see one’s name in print; A book’s a book, although there’s nothing in’t.
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, Line 51 -
The best of prophets of the future is the past.
Letter, Jan. 28, 1821 -
For freedom’s battle, once begun, Bequeath’d by bleeding sire to son, Though baffled oft, is ever won.
The Giaour, Line 123 -
Be thou the rainbow to the storms of life, The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, And tints to-morrow with prophetic ray!
The Bride of Abydos, Canto ii. Stanza 20 -
Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart; ’Tis woman’s whole existence.
Don Juan, Canto i. Stanza 194 -
Such is the aspect of this shore; ’Tis Greece, but living Greece no more! So coldly sweet, so deadly fair, We start, for soul is wanting there.
The Giaour, Line 90 -
Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, Line 6 -
’Tis sweet to hear the watch-dog’s honest bark Bay deep-mouth’d welcome as we draw near home; ’Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark Our coming, and look brighter when we come.
Don Juan, Canto i. Stanza 123 -
My days are in the yellow leaf; The flowers and fruits of love are gone; The worm, the canker, and the grief Are mine alone!
On my Thirty-sixth Year -
No hand can make the clock strike for me the hours that are past.
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Why did she love him? Curious fool!—be still—Is human love the growth of human will?
Lara, Canto II -
None are so desolate but something dear, dearer than self, possesses or possess’d.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage -
Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto iv. Stanza 23
Where these quotes come from
- Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (119 quotes)
- Don Juan (90 quotes)
- Childe Harold (22 quotes)
- The Giaour (14 quotes)
- English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (13 quotes)
- The Corsair (12 quotes)
- Beppo (10 quotes)
- The Bride of Abydos (9 quotes)
Every quote comes from a public-domain edition. How the library was made .