George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (1788–1824,) known as Lord Byron, was an English poet. He not only was English literature’s first celebrity superstar but also gained notoriety for his many love affairs.
Byron was born in London. His clubfoot had a significant effect on his future disposition. He spent his early years in Aberdeen and was educated at Cambridge. He took an expedition to Portugal, Spain, Albania, Greece, and Constantinople. The striking scenery and the exotic cultures that he experienced on this tour formed the basis for the first two cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1809,) which made him famous overnight. Facing mounting pressure because of his failed marriage, infamous (and incestuous) relationships, and huge debts, Byron left England in 1816 and never returned.
In 1819, while staying in Venice, Byron wrote some of his most celebrated works, including Don Juan (1819–24.) In 1823, he left Italy to join the Greek revolutionaries in their fight for independence against the Ottoman Empire. He caught marsh fever and died at Missolonghi in 1824.
Byron’s poetry was prevalent despite being widely criticized for moral reasons. Much of his poetry and drama exerted considerable influence on the Romantic Movement. His legacy of inspiration in European poetry, music, the novel, opera, and painting, has been colossal.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Death, so called, is a thing which makes men weep, and yet a third of life is passed in sleep.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Sleep, Death, Dying
Tempted fate will leave the loftiest star.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Fate
To fly from, need not be to hate, makind:
All are not fit with them to stir and toil,
Nor is it discontent to keep the mind
Deep in its fountain.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Solitude
Like other parties of the kind, it was first silent, then talky, then argumentative, then disputatious, then unintelligible, then altogether, then inarticulate, and then drunk. When we had reached the last step of this glorious ladder, it was difficult to get down again without stumbling.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Parties, Party
Keep thy smooth words and juggling homilies for those who know thee not.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Hypocrisy
I do not believe in revealed religion – I will have nothing to do with your immortality; we are miserable enough in this life, without speculating on another
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Religion
To feel for none is the true social art of the world’s stoics—men without a heart.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Like the measles, love is most dangerous when it comes late in life.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Love, Feelings
When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy,
And the dimpling stream runs laughing by;
When the air does laugh with our merry wit,
And the green hill laughs with the noise of it.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Laughter
That famish’d people must be slowly nurst, And fed by spoonfuls, else they always burst.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Eating
The truly brave are soft of heart and eyes, and feel for what their duty bids them do.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
In solitude, where we are least alone.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: One liners, Solitude
Cleverness and cunning are incompatible.—I never saw them united.—The latter is the resource of the weak, and is only natural to them.—Children and fools are always cunning, but clever people never.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Cunning
With pleasure drugged, he almost longed for woe.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
He who surpasses or subdues mankind must look down on the hate of those below.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Hate, Ambition, Jealousy, Victory
The tenor’s voice is spoilt by affectation, And for the bass, the beast can only bellow; In fact, he had no singing education, An ignorant, noteless, timeless, tuneless fellow
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Affectation
The beginning of atonement is the sense of its necessity.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Repentance, Forgiveness
Critics are already made.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Criticism, Critics
Who falls from all he knows of bliss, dares little into what abyss.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
My turn of mind is so given to taking things in the absurd point of view, that it breaks out in spite of me every now and then.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
In commitment, we dash the hopes of a thousand potential selves.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Perseverance
Vice—that digs her own voluptuous tomb.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Vice
‘Tis very certain the desire of life prolongs it.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Optimism, Positive Attitudes, Life, Death
For in itself a thought, a slumbering thought, is capable of years, and curdles a long life into one hour.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Thinking, World, Thought, Thoughts
That is the most perfect government under which a wrong to the humblest is an affront to all.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Government
Friendship is love without his wings.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Friendship
There’s naught, no doubt, so much the spirit calms as rum and true religion.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Contentment
It is not one man nor a million, but the spirit of liberty that must be preserved. The waves which dash upon the shore are, one by one, broken, but the ocean conquers nevertheless. It overwhelms the Armada, it wears out the rock. In like manner, whatever the struggle of individuals, the great cause will gather strength.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Liberty
The way to be immortal (I mean not to die at all) is to have me for your heir. I recommend you to put me in your will and you will see that (as long as I live at least) you will never even catch cold.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Inheritance
Love without passion is dreary; passion without love is horrific.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Passion
The heart will break, but broken live on.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Heart
It is very iniquitous to make me pay debts, you have no idea, of the pain it gives one.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Debt
The power of Thought, the magic of the Mind!
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Magic, One liners
When age chills the blood, when our pleasures are past—
For years fleet away with the wings of the dove—
The dearest remembrance will still be the last,
Our sweetest memorial the first kiss of love.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Remembrance
Ye stars, that are the poetry of heaven!
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Stars
Brave men were living before Agamemnon.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Brave
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 (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Names
I swims in the Tagus all across at once, and I rides on an ass or a mule, and swears Portuguese, and have got a diarrhea and bites from the mosquitoes. But what of that? Comfort must not be expected by folks that go a pleasuring.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Travel, Tourism
Oh! too convincing—dangerously dear—In woman’s eye the unanswerable tear!
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Cries, Crying
To make an empire durable, the magistrates must obey the laws, and the people the magistrates.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Law
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