Thomas Moore quotes
Thomas Moore (1779–1852): Irish poet, singer and songwriter. The library holds 119 quotes by Thomas Moore, drawn from The Fire-Worshippers, Lalla Rookh. The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, Lalla Rookh. The Light of the Harem and other works. The 60 below are the most quoted; search the library in the maker for the rest.
Often about: nature, faith, love, time, life, happiness
The best-known Thomas Moore quotes
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This world is all a fleeting show, For man’s illusion given; The smiles of joy, the tears of woe, Deceitful shine, deceitful flow,—There’s nothing true but Heaven.
This World is all a fleeting Show -
My only books Were woman’s looks, And folly’s all they’ve taught me.
The time I’ve lost in wooing -
But there’s nothing half so sweet in life As love’s young dream.
Love’s Young Dream -
And when once the young heart of a maiden is stolen, The maiden herself will steal after it soon.
Ill Omens -
As sunshine broken in the rill, Though turned astray, is sunshine still.
The Fire-Worshippers -
Humility, that low, sweet root From which all heavenly virtues shoot.
The Loves of the Angels. The Third Angel’s Story -
To sigh, yet feel no pain; To weep, yet scarce know why; To sport an hour with Beauty’s chain, Then throw it idly by.
The Blue Stocking -
The minds of some of our statesmen, like the pupil of the human eye, contract themselves the more, the stronger light there is shed upon them.
Preface to Corruption and Intolerance -
Beholding heaven, and feeling hell.
The Fire-Worshippers -
Those evening bells! those evening bells! How many a tale their music tells Of youth and home, and that sweet time When last I heard their soothing chime!
Those Evening Bells -
When Time who steals our years away Shall steal our pleasures too, The mem’ry of the past will stay, And half our joys renew.
Song. From Juvenile Poems -
No eye to watch, and no tongue to wound us, All earth forgot, and all heaven around us.
Come o’er the Sea -
This narrow isthmus ’twixt two boundless seas, The past, the future,—two eternities!
Lalla Rookh. The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan -
Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish; Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal.
Come, ye Disconsolate -
Faintly as tolls the evening chime, Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time.
A Canadian Boat-Song -
Rich and rare were the gems she wore, And a bright gold ring on her wand she bore.
Rich and rare were the Gems she wore -
All that’s bright must fade,—The brightest still the fleetest; All that’s sweet was made But to be lost when sweetest.
All that’s Bright must fade -
But Faith, fanatic Faith, once wedded fast To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last.
Lalla Rookh. The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan -
A friendship that like love is warm; A love like friendship, steady.
How shall I woo? -
No, the heart that has truly lov’d never forgets, But as truly loves on to the close; As the sunflower turns on her god when he sets The same look which she turn’d when he rose.
Believe me, if all those endearing young Charms -
Oh for a tongue to curse the slave Whose treason, like a deadly blight, Comes o’er the councils of the brave, And blasts them in their hour of might!
The Fire-Worshippers -
Sound the loud timbrel o’er Egypt’s dark sea! Jehovah has triumph’d,—his people are free.
Sound the loud Timbrel -
Farewell, farewell to thee, Araby’s daughter! Thus warbled a Peri beneath the dark sea.
The Fire-Worshippers -
Go where glory waits thee! But while fame elates thee, Oh, still remember me!
Go where Glory waits thee -
’Tis believ’d that this harp which I wake now for thee Was a siren of old who sung under the sea.
The Origin of the Harp -
To live with them is far less sweet Than to remember thee.
I saw thy Form -
I give thee all,—I can no more, Though poor the off’ring be; My heart and lute are all the store That I can bring to thee.
My Heart and Lute -
How shall we rank thee upon glory’s page, Thou more than soldier, and just less than sage?
To Thomas Hume -
If I speak to thee in friendship’s name, Thou think’st I speak too coldly; If I mention love’s devoted flame, Thou say’st I speak too boldly.
How shall I woo? -
Earth hath no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.
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Thou art, O God, the life and light Of all this wondrous world we see; Its glow by day, its smile by night, Are but reflections caught from Thee: Where’er we turn, Thy glories shine, And all things fair and bright are Thine.
Thou Art, O God -
The heart that is soonest awake to the flowers is always the first to be touched by the thorns.
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A philosopher being asked what was the first thing necessary to win the love of a woman, answered: “Opportunity.”
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Where there is room in the heart there is always room in the house.
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The light that lies In woman’s eyes.
The Time I’ve lost in wooing -
Love on through all ills, and love on till they die.
Lalla Rookh. The Light of the Harem -
Ay, down to the dust with them, slaves as they are! From this hour let the blood in their dastardly veins, That shrunk at the first touch of Liberty’s war, Be wasted for tyrants, or stagnate in chains.
On the Entry of the Austrians into Naples, 1821 -
And memory, like a drop that night and day Falls cold and ceaseless, wore my heart away!
Lalla Rookh -
Oh call it by some better name, For friendship sounds too cold.
Oh call it by some better Name -
Like the stain’d web that whitens in the sun, Grow pure by being purely shone upon.
Lalla Rookh. The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan -
Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast, The rapids are near, and the daylight’s past.
A Canadian Boat-Song -
One of those passing rainbow dreams Half light, half shade, which Fancy’s beams Paint on the fleeting mists that roll, In trance or slumber, round the soul.
Lalla Rookh -
When did morning ever break, And find such beaming eyes awake?
Fly not yet -
I see that conscience, truth, and honesty are made To rise and fall, like other wares of trade.
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Faith, fanatic faith, once wedded fast, To save dear falsehood, hugs it to the last.
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I knew, by the smoke that so gracefully curl’d Above the green elms, that a cottage was near; And I said, “If there’s peace to be found in the world, A heart that was humble might hope for it here.”
Ballad Stanzas -
The smiles, the tears, Of boyhood’s years, The words of love then spoken.
Oft in the Stilly Night -
This speck of life in time’s great wilderness, This narrow isthmus ’twixt two boundless seas, The past, the future, two eternities!
Lalla Rookh; The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan -
When true hearts lie wither’d And fond ones are flown, Oh, who would inhabit This bleak world alone?
The Last Rose of Summer -
And oh if there be an Elysium on earth, It is this, it is this!
Lalla Rookh. The Light of the Harem -
When thus the heart is in a vein Of tender thought, the simplest strain Can touch it with peculiar power.
Evenings in Greece. First Evening -
Good at a fight, but better at a play; Godlike in giving, but the devil to pay.
On a Cast of Sheridan’s Hand -
The moon looks On many brooks, “The brook can see no moon but this.”
While gazing on the moon’s light -
Like ships that have gone down at sea When heaven was all tranquillity.
Lalla Rookh, The Light of the Harem -
And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers Is always the first to be touch’d by the thorns.
Oh think not my Spirits are always as light -
I knew, by the smoke that so gracefully curl’d Above the green elms, that a cottage was near.
Ballad Stanzas -
And the tear that we shed, though in secret it rolls, Shall long keep his memory green in our souls.
Oh breathe not his Name -
To live and die in scenes like this, With some we’ve left behind us.
As slow our Ship -
Shall I ask the brave soldier who fights by my side In the cause of mankind, if our creeds agree? Shall I give up the friend I have valued and tried, If he kneel not before the same altar with me?
Come, Send Round the Wine -
The harp that once through Tara’s halls The soul of music shed, Now hangs as mute on Tara’s walls As if that soul were fled.
The Harp That Once Through Tara’s Halls
Where these quotes come from
- The Fire-Worshippers (5 quotes)
- Lalla Rookh. The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan (4 quotes)
- Lalla Rookh. The Light of the Harem (3 quotes)
- Paradise and the Peri (3 quotes)
- A Canadian Boat-Song (2 quotes)
- How shall I woo? (2 quotes)
- Lalla Rookh (2 quotes)
- Fly not yet (2 quotes)
Every quote comes from a public-domain edition. How the library was made .