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)
If I am fool, it is, at least, a doubting one; and I envy no one the certainty of his self-approved wisdom.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Doubt, Skepticism
Death, the sable smoke where vanishes the flame.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Death
Romances I never read like those I have seen.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Authors & Writing, Fiction
Prolonged endurance tames the bold.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Endurance
Who loves, raves.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Love
There is no traitor like him whose domestic treason plants the poniard within the breast that trusted to his truth.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
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
The truly brave, When they behold the brave oppressed with odds, Are touched with a desire to shield and save:—A mixture of wild beasts and demi-gods Are they—now furious as the sweeping wave, Now moved with pity; even as sometimes nods The rugged tree unto the summer wind, Compassion breathes along the savage mind.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Brave
Let them ease their hearts with prate of equal rights, which man never knew.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Equality
I always looked to about thirty as the barrier of any real or fierce delight in the passions, and determined to work them out in the younger ore and better veins of the mine—and I flatter myself (perhaps) that I have pretty well done so—and now the dross is coming.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Age
With thee all toils are sweet; each clime hath charms; earth—sea alike—our world within our arms!
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Love
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 (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: Dying, Death, Sleep
Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart. ‘Tis women’s whole existence.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Passion, Love
What should I have known or written had I been a quiet, mercantile politician or a lord in waiting? A man must travel, and turmoil, or there is no existence.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: World
The king-times are fast finishing. There will be bloodshed like water, and tears like mist; but the peoples will conquer in the end. I shall not live to see it, but I foresee it.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Foresight, Government
Let us not unman each other; part at once; all farewells should be sudden, when forever.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Last Words
My great comfort is, that the temporary celebrity I have wrung from the world has been in the very teeth of all opinions and prejudices. I have flattered no ruling powers; I have never concealed a single thought that tempted me.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Fame
Pleasure’s a sin, and sometimes sin’s a pleasure.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Pleasure
Though I love my country, I do not love my countrymen.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Patriotism
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
There was a laughing devil in his sneer, which raised emotions both of rage and fear; and where his frown of hatred darkly fell, hope withering fled, and mercy sighed farewell.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
All tragedies are finished by a death,
All comedies are ended by a marriage;
The future states of both are left to faith,
For authors fear description might disparage
The worlds to come of both… .
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Marriage
Talent may be in time forgiven, but genius never.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Genius, Talent
Thou need’st not answer; thy confession speaks,
Already redd’ning in thy guilty cheeks.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Guilt
Most glorious night!
Thou wert not sent for slumber!
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Night
I should be very willing to redress men wrongs, and rather check than punish crimes, had not Cervantes, in that all too true tale of Quixote, shown how all such efforts fail.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Punishment
There is no such thing as a life of passion any more than a continuous earthquake, or an eternal fever. Besides, who would ever shave themselves in such a state?
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Passion
Let no man be called happy before his death. Till then, he is not happy, only lucky.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Happiness
Though women are angels, yet wedlock’s the devil.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Marriage
What thou seest speak of with caution.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Secrecy
The devil was the first democrat.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Democracy
In commitment, we dash the hopes of a thousand potential selves.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Perseverance
Absence—that common cure of love.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: One liners, Absence
The thorns which I have reap’d are of the tree
I planted; they have torn me, and I bleed.
I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Responsibility, Trouble
I loathe that low vice, curiosity.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Curiosity
A paler shadow strews its mantle over the mountains; parting day dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues with a new color as it gasps away.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Man! thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Man
Here lies interred in the eternity of the past, from whence there is no resurrection for the days—whatever there may be for the dust—the thirty-third year of an ill-spent life, which, after a lingering disease of many months sank into a lethargy, and expired, January 22d, 1821, A.D. leaving a successor inconsolable for the very loss which occasioned its existence.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Birthdays
I know that two and two make four—and should be glad to prove it too if I could—though I must say if by any sort of process I could convert 2 and 2 into five it would give me much greater pleasure.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Topics: Mathematics, Science
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