Top 500 Lord Byron Quotes (2024 Update)
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201. “Eternal Spirit of the chainless Mind! Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art, For there thy habitation is the heart – The heart which love of thee alone can bind; And when thy sons to fetters are consign’d – To fetters and damp vault’s dayless gloom, Their country conquers with their martyrdom.”

— Lord Byron

202. “Maidens, like moths, are ever caught, by glare, And Mammon wins his way where seraphs might despair.”

— Lord Byron

203. “What deep wounds ever closed without a scar? The hearts bleed longest, and heals but to wear That which disfigures it.”

— Lord Byron

204. “All tragedies are finished by a death, All comedies are ended by a marriage.”

— Lord Byron

205. “I am so changeable, being everything by turns and nothing long – such a strange melange of good and evil.”

— Lord Byron

206. “In the desert a fountain is springing, In the wide waste there still is a tree, And a bird in the solitude singing, Which speaks to my spirit of thee.”

— Lord Byron

207. “I have a passion for the name of “Mary,” For once it was a magic sound to me, And still it half calls up the realms of fairy, Where I beheld what never was to be.”

— Lord Byron

208. “Oh Rome! My country! City of the soul!”

— Lord Byron

209. “What men call gallantry, and gods adultery, is much more common where the climate’s sultry.”

— Lord Byron

210. “Italia! O Italia! thou who hast The fatal gift of beauty.”

— Lord Byron

211. “The sight of blood to crowds begets the thirst of more, As the first wine-cup leads to the long revel.”

— Lord Byron

212. “The devil was the first democrat.”

— Lord Byron

213. “Egypt! from whose all dateless tombs arose Forgotten Pharaohs from their long repose, And shook within their pyramids to hear A new Cambyses thundering in their ear; While the dark shades of forty ages stood Like startled giants by Nile’s famous flood.”

— Lord Byron

214. “Know ye not who would be free themselves must strike the blow? by their right arms the conquest must be wrought?”

— Lord Byron

215. “So bright the tear in Beauty’s eye, Love half regrets to kiss it dry.”

— Lord Byron

216. “Between two worlds life hovers like a star, twixt night and morn, upon the horizon’s verge.”

— Lord Byron

217. “No ear can hear nor tongue can tell the tortures of the inward hell!”

— Lord Byron

218. “A little still she strove, and much repented, And whispering “I will ne’er consent” – consented.”

— Lord Byron

219. “Prolonged endurance tames the bold.”

— Lord Byron

220. “Oh, nature’s noblest gift, my grey goose quill, Slave of my thoughts, obedient to my will, Torn from the parent bird to form a pen, That mighty instrument of little men.”

— Lord Byron

221. “As falls the dew on quenchless sands, blood only serves to wash ambition’s hands.”

— Lord Byron

222. “I am the very slave of circumstance And impulse borne away with every breath! Misplaced upon the throne misplaced in life. I know not what I could have been, but feel I am not what I should be let it end.”

— Lord Byron

223. “Twas twilight, and the sunless day went down Over the waste of waters; like a veil, Which, if withdrawn, would but disclose the frown Of one whose hate is mask’d but to assail.”

— Lord Byron

224. “For pleasures past I do not grieve, nor perils gathering near; My greatest grief is that I leave nothing that claims a tear.”

— Lord Byron

225. “History – the devil’s scripture.”

— Lord Byron

226. “Not to admire, is all the art I know To make men happy, or to keep them so. Thus Horace wrote we all know long ago; And thus Pope quotes the precept to re-teach From his translation; but had none admired, Would Pope have sung, or Horace been inspired?”

— Lord Byron

227. “The drying up a single tear has more, of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore.”

— Lord Byron

228. “When Bishop Berkeley said “there was no matter.” And proved it – ’t was no matter what he said.”

— Lord Byron

229. “Man, being reasonable, must get drunk; the best of life is but intoxication.”

— Lord Byron

230. “A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded.”

— Lord Byron

231. “Admire, exult, despise, laugh, weep for here There is such matter for all feelings: Man! Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear.”

— Lord Byron

232. “Cervantes smiled Spain’s chivalry away.”

— Lord Byron

233. “Who falls from all he knows of bliss, Cares little into what abyss.”

— Lord Byron

234. “A woman should never be seen eating or drinking, unless it be lobster salad and Champagne, the only true feminine and becoming viands.”

— Lord Byron

235. “Switzerland is a curst, selfish, swinish country of brutes, placed in the most romantic region of the world.”

— Lord Byron

236. “Dim with the mist of years, gray flits the shade of power.”

— Lord Byron

237. “For truth is always strange; stranger than fiction.”

— Lord Byron

238. “And gentle winds and waters near, make music to the lonely ear.”

— Lord Byron

239. “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.”

— Lord Byron

240. “So the struck eagle, stretch’d upon the plain, No more through rolling clouds to soar again, View’d his own feather on the fatal dart, And wing’d the shaft that quiver’d in his heart.”

— Lord Byron

241. “As soon seek roses in December, ice in June, Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff Believe a woman or an epitaph Or any other thing that’s false Before you trust in critics.”

— Lord Byron

242. “Ecclesiastes said that “all is vanity,” Most modern preachers say the same, or show it By their examples of true Christianity: In short, all know, or very short may know it.”

— Lord Byron

243. “I learned to love despair.”

— Lord Byron

244. “Of all tales ’tis the saddest – and more sad, Because it makes us smile.”

— Lord Byron

245. “I am as comfortless as a pilgrim with peas in his shoes – and as cold as Charity, Chastity or any other Virtue.”

— Lord Byron

246. “Tis pleasing to be school’d in a strange tongue By female lips and eyes – that is, I mean, When both the teacher and the taught are young, As was the case, at least, where I have been; They smile so when one’s right; and when one’s wrong They smile still more.”

— Lord Byron

247. “Society is now one polished horde, formed of two mighty tries, the Bores and Bored.”

— Lord Byron

248. “Who knows whether, when a comet shall approach this globe to destroy it, as it often has been and will be destroyed, men will not tear rocks from their foundations by means of steam, and hurl mountains, as the giants are said to have done, against the flaming mass? – and then we shall have traditions of Titans again, and of wars with Heaven...”

— Lord Byron

249. “My heart in passion, and my head on rhymes.”

— Lord Byron

250. “There’s naught, no doubt, so much the spirit calms as rum and true religion.”

— Lord Byron