264 Quotes by Walter Savage Landor

Dignity, in private men and in governments, has been little else than a stately and stiff perseverance in oppression; and spirit, as it is called, little else than the foam of hard-mouthed insolence.

A smile is ever the most bright and beautiful with a tear upon it. What is the dawn without the dew? The tear is rendered by the smile precious above the smile itself.

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.

There is a vast deal of vital air in loving words.

Other offences, even the greatest, are the violation of one law: despotism is the violation of all.

We fancy that our afflictions are sent us directly from above; sometimes we think it in piety and contrition, but oftener in moroseness and discontent.

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.

Fame, they tell you, is air; but without air there is no life for any; without fame there is none for the best.

Patience, piety, and salutary knowledge spring up and ripen under the harrow of affliction; before there is wine or oil, the grape must be trodden and the oil pressed.