The voices / 88 fragments

Walter Savage Landor

1775 AD — 1864 AD

Listed in the author section of Bartlett’s ninth-edition anthology, in the linked 1905 printing. Dates reflect that historical edition and may differ from modern scholarship.

Author and source reference ↗

▷ Play this voice Search within this voice ↗Place in time ↗life nature love work friendship happiness wisdom knowledge

Historical source references

Rose Aylmer
The last Fruit of an old Tree
To Robert Browning
Gebir
Dying Speech of an old Philosopher
Heart · anthology attribution: Landor
Prosperity · anthology attribution: Landor
Printed citation: Landor
Number 302 · printed citation: Landor
Page 59 · printed citation: W
Page 322 · printed citation: W
Page 325 · printed citation: W
Page 330 · printed citation: W
Page 22 · printed citation: Landor · subject: Associates
Page 23 · printed citation: Landor · subject: Authors
Page 28 · printed citation: Landor · subject: Bible
Page 112 · printed citation: Landor · subject: Happiness
Page 113 · printed citation: Landor · subject: Happiness
Page 175 · printed citation: Landor · subject: Modesty
Page 24 · printed citation: Landor · subject: Avarice

Archive entries

01c. 1819 AD

Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes May weep, but never see, A night of memories and of sighs I consecrate to thee.

Walter Savage Landor / quote

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02c. 1819 AD

Wearers of rings and chains! Pray do not take the pains To set me right. In vain my faults ye quote; I write as others wrote On Sunium's hight.

Walter Savage Landor / quote

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03c. 1819 AD

Shakespeare is not our poet, but the world's,— Therefore on him no speech! And brief for thee, Browning! Since Chaucer was alive and hale, No man hath walk'd along our roads with steps So active, so inquiring eye, or tongue So varied in discourse.

Walter Savage Landor / quote

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04c. 1819 AD

The Siren waits thee, singing song for song.

Walter Savage Landor / quote

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05c. 1819 AD

But I have sinuous shells of pearly hue Within, and they that lustre have imbibed In the sun's palace-porch, where when unyoked His chariot-wheel stands midway in the wave: Shake one, and it awakens; then apply Its polisht lips to your attentive ear, And it remembers its august abodes, And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there.

Walter Savage Landor / quote

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06c. 1819 AD

Past are three summers since she first beheld The ocean; all around the child await Some exclamation of amazement here. She coldly said, her long-lasht eyes abased, Is this the mighty ocean? is this all? That wondrous soul Charoba once possest,— Capacious, then, as earth or heaven could hold, Soul discontented with capacity,— Is gone (I fear) forever. Need I say She was enchanted by the wicked spells Of Gebir, whom with lust of power inflamed The western winds have landed on our coast? I since have watcht her in lone retreat, Have heard her sigh and soften out the name.

Walter Savage Landor / quote

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07c. 1819 AD

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife; Nature I loved; and next to Nature, Art. I warm'd both hands against the fire of life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart.

Walter Savage Landor / quote

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08Undated

The heart that has once been bathed in love's pure fountain retains the pulse of youth forever.

Walter Savage Landor / quote

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09Undated

We must distinguish between felicity and prosperity; for prosperity leads often to ambition, and ambition to disappointment.

Walter Savage Landor / quote

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10Undated

A great man is he who can call together the most select company when it pleases him.

Walter Savage Landor / quote

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11Undated

Circumstances are things round about; we are in them, not under them.

Walter Savage Landor / quote

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12Undated

Clear writers, like clear fountains, do not seem so deep as they are; the turbid look the most profound.

Walter Savage Landor / quote

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13Undated

Cruelty is no more the cure of crimes than it is the cure of sufferings.

Walter Savage Landor / quote

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14Undated

Democracy is always the work of kings. Ashes, which in themselves are sterile, fertilise the land they are cast upon.

Walter Savage Landor / quote

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15Undated

Despotism sits nowhere so secure as under the effigy and ensigns of freedom.

Walter Savage Landor / quote

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16Undated

Every good writer has much idiom; it is the life and spirit of language.

Walter Savage Landor / quote

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17Undated

Every great writer is a writer of history, let him treat on almost what subject he may. He carries with him for thousands of years a portion of his times; and, indeed, if only his own effigy were there, it would be greatly more than a fragment of his century.

Walter Savage Landor / quote

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18Undated

Everything that looks to the future elevates human nature; for never is life so low as when occupied with the present.

Walter Savage Landor / quote

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19Undated

Fancy is imagination in her youth and adolescence.

Walter Savage Landor / quote

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20Undated

Friendship is a vase, which, when it is flawed by heat, or violence, or accident, may as well be broken at once; it never can be trusted after.

Walter Savage Landor / quote

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21Undated

Great men lose somewhat of their greatness by being near us; ordinary men gain much.

Walter Savage Landor / quote

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22Undated

Great men too often have greater faults than little men can find room for.

Walter Savage Landor / quote

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23Undated

Great men will always pay deference to greater.

Walter Savage Landor / quote

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24Undated

Greatness, as we daily see it, is unsociable.

Walter Savage Landor / quote

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Walter Savage Landor

Archive entries

Read further

The Republic

Tao Te Ching

The Prophet