Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Thomas Love Peacock (English Satirist)

Thomas Love Peacock (1785–1866,) an English novelist, poet, and official of the East India Company, was renowned for his satirical and humorous works, firmly establishing himself within the Romantic literary circle, where he counted Percy Bysshe Shelley among his close friends.

Born in Weymouth, England, Peacock crafted satirical novels, all set around a table where characters engaged in discussions critiquing the prevailing philosophical opinions of the day. The initiation of his literary career came with his first novel, Headlong Hall (1816.) Subsequent works, including Nightmare Abbey (1818) and Crotchet Castle (1831,) continued to showcase his satirical style and keen wit, lampooning various intellectual and social trends of the time.

One of Peacock’s most notable works is The Misfortunes of Elphin (1829,) a historical novel seamlessly blending romance with political satire. While his novels achieved modest popularity during his lifetime, Peacock is enduringly remembered for his association with Shelley’s circle. He served as the executor of Shelley’s will and authored a memoir detailing the poet’s final days.

In his later years, Peacock’s literary output waned as he directed his focus towards his responsibilities with the East India Company. He succeeded James Mill as chief examiner in 1836, retiring on a pension in 1856.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Thomas Love Peacock

Seamen three! what men be ye? Gotham’s three Wise Men we be. Whither in your bowl so free? To rake the moon from out the sea. The bowl goes trim. The moon doth shine, And our ballast is old wine.
—Thomas Love Peacock
Topics: Wine

Marriage may often be a stormy lake, but celibacy is almost always a muddy horse pond.
—Thomas Love Peacock
Topics: Sex, Marriage

I never failed to convince an audience that the best thing they could do was to go away.
—Thomas Love Peacock
Topics: Audiences, Praise

Nothing can be more obvious than that all animals were created solely and exclusively for the use of man.
—Thomas Love Peacock
Topics: Animals

The waste of plenty is the resource of scarcity.
—Thomas Love Peacock
Topics: Excess, Waste

He kept at true good humour’s mark
The social flow of pleasure’s tide:
He never made a brow look dark,
Nor caused a tear, but when he died.
—Thomas Love Peacock
Topics: Sympathy

A book that furnishes no quotations is no book—it is a plaything.
—Thomas Love Peacock
Topics: Quotations

The truth, I am convinced, is that there is no longer a poetical audience among the higher class of minds, that moral, political, and physical science have entirely withdrawn from poetry the attention of all whose attention is worth having; and that the poetical reading public being composed of the mere dregs of the intellectual community, the most sufficing passport to their favour must rest on the mixture of a little easily-intelligible portion of mawkish sentiment with an absolute negation of reason and knowledge.
—Thomas Love Peacock
Topics: Poetry

Names are changed more readily than doctrines, and doctrines more readily than ceremonies.
—Thomas Love Peacock
Topics: Names

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